Belgium’s best fries contest heats up

Thick or thin, greasy or crispy, with samurai sauce or a traditional mayo dip? A TV show has been on a quest to find the best fries in potato-mad Belgium.
For four years, “La meilleure friterie” (the best chip shop), a culinary competition aired by broadcaster RTL-TVI, has sought perfection among fry peddlers in the country’s French-speaking region.
Watching it is a “sacred Thursday night ritual”, said host David Antoine.
Crowning a winner among a dozen contestants is no picnic.
“There’s sometimes friction among the judges, but we always find that famous Belgian compromise” over a portion of fries, Antoine said, joking about the country’s penchant for lengthy political negotiations.
Fried potatoes are a national dish and symbol of pride in Belgium, home to about 4,600 diners specialising in the dish, known as “friteries” in French or “frituren” in Flemish.
That number “has remained stable for many years”, said Bernard Lefevre of the National Chip Shop Union, noting the “market is doing well”.
To Lefevre, a good chip is preferably cut from a Belgian Bintje potato and double fried in beef fat. Size is paramount.
“Anything under nine millimetres is too thin and anything over fourteen is too thick”, he explained.
At Hill’s Burger in Brussels, chef Massimo Sefa has chosen a “size twelve”: “a two-millimetre crust and ten millimetres of creamy flesh”.
The 23-year-old smiled nervously when the judges entered and cameras started rolling.
But the stress is worthwhile. The broadcast will spotlight his friterie, and a win would likely send sales skyrocketing.
Sefa opened the shop with his younger brothers, Lorenzo and Marco. Chips are a family matter: their grandfather ran about 10 Brussels chip shops.
“Wow, delicious, crispy, and peeled by hand”, judge Fabienne De Corte raved.
“Fries in Belgium are our gold”, added her husband Patrick, also a judge. “Every little detail makes a difference”.
The show has a devout following, with some fans attending filming dressed as fry cones and chanting: “We’ve got the fries, we’ve got the potatoes!”
It has also faced controversy, particularly over sauces.
A technical glitch disrupted public voting in the first season, while some complained the winner had bamboozled judges with dazzling sauces, although the fries were not to everyone’s taste.
Still, the programme has established itself in Belgium’s French-speaking media landscape as fries evolve alongside society.
“There are halal, vegetarian, and vegan fry shops — that’s perfectly normal; society is evolving. We’re not a museum of bygone folklore”, Lefevre said. — AFP