De-Politicizing the French Fry
Travel Blog • Terry Ward • 08.03.06 | 9:48 PM ET
Francophile that I am, I was glad to hear a short snippet on the NBC Nightly News yesterday evening mentioning a menu change on Capitol Hill. “Freedom fries” and “freedom toast”—so dubbed on congressional cafeteria menus when tensions rose between Washington and Paris during the looming invasion of Iraq in 2003—have quietly reverted to their original monikers, French fries and French toast. A USA Today blog noted that, back in 2003, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, angry about France’s anti-war position, “wielded his legislative authority over the House cafeterias and mandated a change of menu, which had been suggested by Republican colleague Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina.” The blog goes on to say that there are no official comments from the hill on the decision to re-Frenchify the names.
Fine, but I tracked down a May 2005 story in the Guardian that just might offer a little insight—or at least an interesting postscript to the story. Reported the paper:
[N]ow the US politician who led the campaign to change the name of french fries to “freedom fries” has turned against the war.
Walter Jones, the Republican congressman for North Carolina who was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, told a local newspaper the US went to war “with no justification.”
[Snip]
Asked by a reporter for the North Carolina News and Observer about the name-change campaign—an idea Mr Jones said at the time came to him by a combination of God’s hand and a constituent’s request—he replied: “I wish it had never happened.”
Frankly, Mr. Congressman, so do I. But truth be told, I’ll take my fries anyway I can get them—free or French, and full of fat.
Email to friend
Twitter
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz
Terry Ward is a Florida-based writer and a long-time contributor to World Hum.
