The history of the Belgian fry

The Frietmuseum in Bruges is made up of 3 parts:
the first section explains the history of the potato, next comes the history of the fries and at the end the possibility to sample them.

As far as the potato is concerned, its history goes back to around 10,000 years ago, that is 8,000 years before Jesus Christ, since wild potatoes have been found in several tombs in Peru and Chile.  This tends to prove that already at that time the wild potato was used and probably consumed by the inhabitants of that part of the world.

The museum explains how the wild potato became a cultivated plant and how the plant then travelled from Peru to Europe and, to be more precise, to Belgium.

The second part traces the history of the fries and their Belgian origin and gives advice on how to make the best fries.

The museum also describes the different types of sauce which can be served with fries.

In the third part of the museum, in the basement cellars, it is possible to sample fries and a certain number of typical Belgian meat dishes such as meat balls and beef stew.

The whole museum contains around 400 ancient objects.  The oldest, dating from the pre-Columbian period, are Inca vases representing different sorts of potato. 

The visitor can read all this information which is displayed over fifty or so notice boards and in several films, including the harvesting of potatoes and the best way to cook them in order to make delicious fries.