Fries with War Sauce? Why Not ‘Fries with Peace Sauce’?
Fries with satay sauce, mayo and onions – delicious, and then it has such an unfortunate name: fries with war sauce. Can’t we call it ‘fries with peace sauce’ instead? It’s been tried, and unfortunately, it failed.
According to many people, that strange name for fries with satay sauce, mayo and onion was coined as a reference to the war in the Dutch East Indies. Pierre Wind, who wrote the book ‘Fries with War Sauce’, considers that implausible. ‘The connection is understandable, but peanut sauce only came into the picture later. The name simply means “mess on your plate”. It’s just street slang.’
Fries Flip?
Ever since fries appeared on the menu at snack bars, attempts have been made to change the name. A little pacifism in the display cabinet, so to speak: fries Flip, fries mess or even fries with peace sauce. No success; customers even get a little angry about it. The anonymous Vetzak writes on a forum about what happened when he ordered fries with war sauce at the snack bar. ‘That woman corrected me in a really snobbish way and said: we call that fries with peace sauce here, as if I were the biggest criminal. I can tell you, I never went there again.’
Saddam Hussein
Some creative snack bar owners take it a step further. Not an extra spoonful of onions, but an addition to the náme: Gulf War fries or Saddam Hussein fries. Tasteful, indeed. During the war in Yugoslavia, snack bars took action against fries with war sauce. Snackbar Annie in Gelderland started it; they renamed the fries ‘party fries’. Anyone who still asked for fries with war sauce at the counter had to transfer 25 euros to a foundation helping refugees from Yugoslavia. A hundred snack bars took part, but fries with war sauce remained.
Special fork
Is the time now ripe to change the name of the iconic fries combination? In 2015, Warchild made another attempt: on Liberation Day, fries with war sauce were temporarily called ‘Fries with Peace Sauce’. People received a special environmentally friendly fork with it, paid twenty cents extra, and the proceeds from those forks went to charity. No success; customers at the snack bars thought the money would only end up in the director’s pockets anyway.
Also read:
- 7 things you didn’t yet know about the history of fries
- Delicious: make raspatat yourself
- Croky comes with a new flavour of our favourite fries
Source: Wired, 24Kitchen
