Ahead of me, I can see the golden arches of a McDonald’s flashing into my field of vision like a warning sign.

Fries!

Not good. I’d only eat them and feel empty afterwards. I know carbohydrate snacks make you hungry. Eat on and you want another. Successful products are the ones that do not satisfy. Fries have a glycaemic index of 75 – few foods raise your blood sugar so fast.

My research shows that the unnamed French, or possibly Belgian, chef who first discovered the process of double-frying potatoes in the 1890s; that’s what makes chips crisp outside and fluffy inside. By that time, US soldiers who returned from the trenches of World War One and asked their wives to cook French fries.

Two McDonald brothers, Richard J. McDonald (Dick) and Maurice McDonald (Mac), who reopened their fast-food diner in San Bernardino, California, with a brilliant idea: ditch everything on the menu that requires the use of a knife and fork. Business boomed. People drove kilometers for their hamburgers and fries.

Chicago salesman Ray Kroc, when he heard about the diner, he drove to San Bernardino to investigate. He went to work with the McDonalds and went on the buy out their name and methods. And Kroc built an empire. It was Kroc and his team who perfected the method of curing potatoes in a warehouse, so that some of the starch in the tubers would turn into sugar. This is why, when fried, they turn a lovely golden brown.

J.R. Simplot of Idaho, the greatest potato baron in history. After World War Two, he hired a team of chemists to research frozen potatoes. The big discovery was that French fries, which need to be cooked twice, could be frozen between the first cooking and the second. This meant that fries no longer needed to be prepared completely on site. In 1965, Kroc agreed to let Simplot provide McDonald’s with frozen French fries.

Perhaps David Wallerstein, the mastermind of supersizing. Wallerstein, a McDonald’s executive in the 1970s, had managed cinemas in the 1960s and found that he could increase profits by offering bigger servings of popcorn.
In the end, Kroc capitulated. Portions grew and grew. In 1960 a regular serving of McDonald’s fries weighted 68g and contained 840 kilojoules. Now, a large portion weighs 159g and contains 1890 kilojoules.

Imagine yourself taking a box of fries in your hand and picking out two or three. How long before they’re in your mouth? 2 secs? You don’t spend much time thinking about where they came from, do you? But these fries have been on a long journey.
I’ve seen how potatoes arrive at one end of a factory and emerge, as bagged and boxed frozen chips, at the other. A river of potatoes flows into shiny cylindrical tanks that rotate while the skins are blasted off with steam. Then they shot through “hydro-guns”, forced by presurised water through metal pipes at a speed of over 110km/h. At the end of each pipe is a grid of blades. This is the point where one potato becomes ten or more fries.

Next, the river of potatoes becomes a Niagara Falls of what potato men call “strips”. The strips are whizzed along on a holed conveyor, to ensure that small ones fall through into the vast nether world below, the Hades of failed fries. Consistency is all.
The fries flow past cameras that look out for any blemishes that might remain; in a breathtaking feat of technology, blades are programmed to pop up and slice off the blemishes. Just like cosmetic surgery.

These strips of starchy tuber are then fried in a swimming-pool-sized vat of boiling fat. They’re cooled and frozen and packed. Later, selected chips are given their second frying and tasted by a panel. One taster stands still, pushing fries into his mouth. He is concentrating. He is the size of a black bear. He nods, satisfied, and picks up the next batch. Never look down on him as one my sister who graduated from food science degree, was worked as a “taster” before she resigned from food factory. Just imagine how much salt they have to put on their tongue.

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