chip?

So now that we have the burger tucked away quite neatly, we turn our rudder towards the mighty ship French Fry. Yummm.

It's not easy to get to the real facts as many sources piss around about where the damn name comes from. Let's face it, they're potatoes, and they're fried. French frying seems to refer to nothing more exotic than spuds cut Julienne style (the French part) and frying which means, well frying).

Oddly enough, the origins of this little tasty gem seem to point to Belgium. The story goes that back in the late 1600's inhabitants of a small Belgian village couldn't deep fry the fish from the local river because it was frozen over, so they went for the potato instead. Apparently, they were carved into a fish shape. I see the connection. Why the hell they were called French Fries might well be just a convenience thing. Belgian Fries sucks. The Belgians speak French anyway. In reality, the Belgians love their fries, elevating them to the stature of national snack. Some would argue it should be higher than that, more of a national meal or dish.

Allied troops who fought in Belgium during the First World War warmed to these delicious potato fingers and no doubt contributed to their popularity back home.

Next time we look at that classic English staple, fish and chips.

Cool potato names: Rocket, Arran Pilot, Red Duke of York, and my favourite, Pink Fir Apple. And yes that's a French Fry holder for your car up above.

over 1 decillion served

As promised a wee bit more recent fast food history before we head backwards in time. I started with talking about burgers so lets stay there for a bit more and flesh out the phenomenon that was White Castle.

Founded in 1921 when businessman Bill Ingram hooked up with restaurateur Walter Anderson, the Wichita , Kansas eatery became the first real fast food style chain ever. Anderson's hamburgers were tiny little affairs that sold for 5 cents. With a coupon you could get 5 for 10 cents.

The business angle of the success of White Castle was an American business first. Food was cooked in a production line, like Henry Ford's cars, and served as fast as people ordered it. To make the small burgers look bigger, they had a square shape so the edges stuck out. They moved to burgers with holes in the middle to reduce cooking times and eliminate flipping these little gems. Cooks at White Castle could really be any of the staff members and that suited them just fine. Staff turnover is typically high in the food service racket so little time and money needed to be spent training cooks. Once again keeping costs down, this no doubt contributed to the hamburger chain being the first to hit the million and then, billion hamburgers sold plateaus.

The innovations were not just in the kitchen. I mean square patties with holes in them are pretty cool, but as the chain expanded, they had to source everything. This is the early 40's after all, and you don't just call up and get 4000 pounds of burger delivered to your door.

Not surprisingly, the staff had to be kept clothed in a uniform and since custom paper hats just didn't exist, and the Internet was still 40 years away, Ingram made his own. Even developed a machine for making them and a company to do it at, Paperlynen.

good brownies

Ah ha, enough already. But I had to tell everyone in case you forgot, the stock Music and Art Fair ended on this day in 1969. And some believe, a whole lot more ended too. Good lord, it must have been one hell of a pain in the ass to set up and run. A glaring reminder of what happens when all the pieces fit, and they did, for just a few days, and in a really weird way.

And talk about weird stuff, the Wizard of Oz opened this day in 1939.

And here's a topic dear to my heart, bad flying. On this day in 1859, mail was delivered by balloon from Indianna to New York. And as expected, the thing never made more than about 30 miles before being forced to land.

Born on this day in 1929 was another unlucky traveller, Francis Gary Powers.

Baseball legend Boog Powell was born on this day in 1941. I joke, but he was entertaining.

And in 1944, jazz great Louis Jordan had a hit with "Is you is, or is you ain't my baby?"

Hey oil was discovered in the Yukon on this day in 1959. Sure took them long enough.

Henry Ford starts up Ford Canada in an old wagon builders barn in 1903.

See ya tomorrow.

Some rotten meat, a little barn dust, and voila.

I figure I'll start right in the middle of fast food history with the popularization of the hamburger in the United States in the 20's. The hamburger, as we know it, a ground meat patty between 2 buns apparently came from Germany about 50 years earlier. It was a quite an ugly affair, being raw ground meat served with seasonings on bread rolls. Of course, if you go way back to Medieval times, you'll find the happy go lucky Tartars placing beef under their saddles to get tenderized (Jesus) while they rode along. This too, was eaten raw.

But hamburger like meals were being served by the turn of the century all over the States. Often as cheap food at fairs when meat of some kind (often low grade and highly seasoned to give it taste and kill the background flavours) was served on a roll. However, there are two claimants to the first burger title who, no doubt dispute the quality angle. One is Louis's Lunch. A diner owned by Louis Lassen of New Haven Connecticut, and the other claim is from the Menches brothers of Hamburg (gimme a break) New York. A ground beef patty served on a bun at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair is probably the first to have a national audience however.

Since I'm dwelling on burgers for now, the next logical step is to a burger only affair, and to that we must meet Billy Ingram and J. Walter Anderson, founders of White Castle.

We'll actually meet them next post. Get out your napkins. And yeah, those guys up above sat on meat.

ketchup time.

So give me crap already, I have been very remiss in keeping my end of the barn up. We've had visitors, the house keeps asking to be repaired, and it's been so damned hot you can't think without sweating. The first two are easy to deal with: at the worst you can just ignore them. The last though, the awful heat, just puts me into a no sleep cycle that just grinds at your head. So, enough crabbing.

As usual I will fill in the void with a few notes about what happened this day many years ago.

One of my favourites was that Nicholas Jacques Conte was born on this day in 1755. This versatile Frenchman was a painter, balloonist (there were a lot of them 350 years ago) and inventor of the pencil.

He was most widely know for his balloon exploits. As was the case then, just like a hundred years hence, when electricity was being toyed with, you had to make the damn things yourself. Considered to be a true aeronautical pioneer, he flew an early home made balloon through the town square.

Napoleon was attracted to the notoriety it produced and asked Conte to work with the French army in Egypt. He was one of the first to figure out that a balloon with an observation deck, flown high enough might be a good thing for an army to have. So did Napoleon.

At the first test flight in Egypt the balloon caught fire and Conte had to be fast to avoid disaster. Ironically, many of those present thought the idea was to SET it on fire then fly it over the enemy and let it down on them. In that context, it was partially effective.

A second flight was made, sans fire, but no one was really convinced it was more than a stunt.

Conte was a versatile inventor so he turned to the next best thing to ballooning and invented the pencil lead. More specifically, that cornerstone of the art world, the conte stick.

As is often the case, clever, and often times great inventions are the children of dire need. In this case, years of British naval blockade limited the French's access to graphite. Conte blended graphite, clay and wax to form a stick or lead that users could hold and draw with. Being an artist himself, he realized pretty quick that he could control the hardness of the lead, and the resulting depth and thickness of the line.

Starting tomorrow, it's the Barn's look at fast food.