You know how you go to Macca’s or Hungry Jack’s and get an order of Fries with a burger?  If you were to do that in America, you’d ask for “French Fries”.  And that has really, really ticked off the Belgians, who believe greasy potato sticks to be their national dish.

The issue has actually united the French, Flemish, and German-speaking parts of the country, which you wouldn’t think is big enough to have three languages but it does.  The French and German communities are now throwing their support behind a Flemish request of UNESCO to grant World Heritage status to Belgian fried potatoes.  Belgians tend to believe that fries were invented in the 17th century by the people of the town of Namur, in Francophone southern Belgium as a substitute for fish.

So, how did the confusion come about?  Blame.. America!

The third US President Thomas Jefferson had “potatoes served in the French manner” at a White House dinner in 1802.  And American soldiers stationed in French-speaking Wallonia during World War I referred to the Belgian national dish as “French fries”.  We can cut them some slack, what with them having liberated the area from invading Germans.  ‘Could have been known as Kaiser Fries.  Just sayin’.

But some historians say there’s no point in nationalizing Europe’s beloved “frites”.

“Potato fries belong to the realm of street food for the poor, which is why it’s so difficult to establish a birth certificate,” French historian Madeleine Ferrieres told Le Point magazine.