Blake Lingle
Interviewee: Blake Lingle
Interviewer: Johanna Bringhurst
Description: Blake Lingle, founder and owner of Boise Fry Company and author of Fries!, An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Favorite Food teaches us everything we ever wanted to know about French fries! Including, why they are not really French!
Date: 2023-12-07
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Johanna Bringhurst: Hello, everyone, and welcome to context. This program is brought to you by the Idaho Humanities Council with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The views expressed here today do not necessarily represent those of the IHC or the NEH. My name is Joanna Bringhurst, and joining us today is Blake Lingle. Blake is the founder and owner of the Boise Fry Company, plus a couple bars and other businesses.
He's also the author of Fries! An Illustrated Guide to the World's Favorite Food. When he's not making delicious taters, you can find him hitting the slopes, coaching youth soccer, or hanging out with his beautiful wife and children. Blake, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about the glorious French fry.
Blake Lingle: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited.
Johanna Bringhurst: I will say probably everyone that I know would list French fries and their top three favorite foods. So we obviously need to delve deep here and figure out what it is about French fries, but has captured all of our hearts.
Blake Lingle: Yeah, absolutely.
Johanna Bringhurst: So not everyone who loves French fries has opened a restaurant devoted to fries or written a book about them, but you have done both. What is it about fries that has captured your heart?
Blake Lingle: Yeah, it's a sort of kind of two stories, you know? When I was little, my parents worked really hard. My dad, I was finishing his degree, and my mom ran a daycare out of our house. So at the time, you know, it was kind of a big deal to go out to eat really, anywhere. You know, we just didn't necessarily have the money for all that.
And so, like when we did, my parents occasionally would give us a choice. And me and my younger siblings would usually pick at the time, McDonald's. It was like, such a big deal. In fact, my parents still joke that, like, when I was really young and we would be driving around, I'd always say that I can't live in a town that doesn't have a McDonald's.
And, and so I just, I think from a young age, I really just almost romanticized McDonald's fries. And it just was such a good memory for me because it was one of the kind of cool outings that we could do as a family when we were really young as go to McDonald's. And then. Yeah. So that was, yeah, a treat for me.
It was definitely, you know, kind of this once in a while family outing that we did. But then later in life, you know, it's still, my love affair, with fries continued. But I guess maybe got a little bit more sophisticated. And, after college, I got my first job working in Washington, D.C., and then, you know, there was these two restaurants kind of right next to each other that I really liked, and one had the really good burger, one had the really good fries.
And I remember at the time thinking, it's so weird that you never really get to choose your fries. They're just kind of thrust upon you. You get what you get. And that was the really the simple idea behind Boise Fry wrote down in a notebook. And I was like, huh, I wonder if you can have a restaurant where you choose your fries and, and and that was really it.
You know, the fry book came a little bit later because, it was actually I was approached by the publisher at Princeton Architect Architectural Press after I had done this, segment with Fabio Viviani. He was on top, Top Chef back in the day. And they did this like Yahoo on the road thing, where he went to restaurants and cooked with folks, and then they went to a concert, the Lumineers played.
And, and then I think, I know the Princeton Architectural Press saw that segment and they reached out and they're like, hey, man, have you ever thought about writing a book on fries? And I hadn't at the time, but I was like, sure, I'd like to do that. I like writing and and that was it.
Johanna Bringhurst: Awesome. Well, I have to admit, one of my favorite French fries at Boise Fry Company is actually the Brussels sprouts. And once you try them, you cannot not quit. And you have to go back again and again. So I think we actually need to decide on a working definition of fries, because I don't think most people would say fried Brussels sprouts count as French fries.
So what is your definition of a fry?
Blake Lingle: Yeah, that's definitely a tough one. I, I would say I take the broader definition. So I would count Brussels sprouts. I tend to think of almost any vegetable sliced and fried as a fry. You know, for example, yams or you know, which a lot of people confuse for sweet potatoes. They're not even in the potato family.
And I would say, you know, 99% of people would consider yam or sweet potato fries. Fries. Correct. And so if you extrapolate that a little bit and include more vegetables, that would be my broad definition. Like I in the book, I talk a little bit about like, could slice bread be considered a fry if you're going to slice bread and then fry it?
But I tend to stick with just vegetables slice and fried.
Johanna Bringhurst: Okay, I like that definition because it includes the Brussels sprouts.
Blake Lingle: Good Brussels sprouts.
Johanna Bringhurst: Plus the bacon jam. Just trust me people, you need to have this in your life. Yeah. We should also talk about the name. We cannot we say French fries here in the United States, but many nations have actually claimed to have invented the fry. So who has the best claim in your opinion?
Blake Lingle: Ooh, that's a real tough one. And I think, too, this would probably go back to the definition. Like if you take kind of my more broad definition of, vegetable, like a vegetable that's been sliced and fried, then, geez, I don't know, you could probably claim that ancient Egypt or ancient Rome have the claim because, you know, there's definitely documents both in the Bible and afterwards that talk about frying vegetables, cutting and frying vegetables.
And so you could say that, you know, chances are they actually have the original claim. But I think if you're going to go with, like the more traditional fry, you know, which is like a white flesh potato, then I would think probably Belgium or France has the strongest claim. It's possible actually, even Spain or Portugal were frying potatoes before that.
But I don't think they were even, like, intentionally, like creating the fry. They were just, you know, putting potato sliced potatoes in dishes, and that's all it was. But, you know, you see evidence with both Belgium and France that they were, like, starting to document it. They were starting to write recipes like, hey, slice the potato, fry it.
They even had some that referenced breading, breading the potato and then frying it. And, you know, Belgium of course, claims that, it was really Americans that confused the whole situation. Like they are really the, they really invented the fry. But during World War Two, the Americans came over and they were listening to French speaking Belgians.
And they were eating fries and they were like, oh, those are French fries. And they were just they were confusing the Belgians for French. And that's how that really that moniker, French Fries came to being, you know, when I did the book and I was doing some research, I would say France probably has the cleanest and earliest references to recipes, and so maybe they have the strongest claim overall because they have some real clear, like even Thomas Jefferson when he came back, as an ambassador, he even referenced it like, some recipes that he saw when he was in France.
So they definitely have the best documentation. But I think the Belgians are probably more passionate about it. So, yeah.
Johanna Bringhurst: Passion usually wins the day, I think. Were those first French fries like what we're eating today when we think of French fries or what were they like?
Blake Lingle: For sure. Very similar honestly. Like it. And of course, it depends on where you get your fries from. You know, like certain fries are produced different than other fries, but honestly, they're not like the first, are not too dissimilar, excuse me. The first recipes I found they had, like real simple ingredients. It was like potatoes sliced and then fried.
And then another one I saw was like potatoes battered or sliced, battered and then fried. And honestly, that's a lot of fries. I mean, that's really similar to how we do the Boise Fry Company to this day.
Johanna Bringhurst: That's cool. Many, many people know that Idaho has a special connection to French fries because our own J.R. Simplot played an important part in mass producing French fries. Can you explain that history?
Blake Lingle: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. J.R. was a boss, you know, he, really I mean, his top scientists, they they essentially, figured out how to mass produce fries, which is, which is incredible. You know, they I think it started with they kind of figured out a way to circulate and purify oil, which made it easier to continue to kind of like mass produce fries versus, you know, the old school way of doing it is you fry a bunch of fries until the oil got bad or dark, and then you, you know, take it out and you do it over again, which of course isn't very efficient.
And they, they worked on those mass produced fries. They also worked on, you know, adding additives and different preservatives to kind of enhance basically the crispiness of the fry. And then I think, you know, a decade after they kind of set out on this endeavor, the real big thing to kind of put them on the map is I think it was J.R. struck a deal with Ray Kroc, you know, the owner of McDonald's.
And and really, that's when things I think exploded for both McDonald's and Simplot. You know, it was a real mutually advantageous relationship. And then all of a sudden, you know, fries were everywhere and fries were better and they were more consistent. And, and I think Simplot's business really took off after that.
Johanna Bringhurst: Were those Idaho potatoes that were being sold at McDonald's?
Blake Lingle: I would assume so, but honestly, I don't know. I mean, Simplot is really active in like Eastern Oregon and Washington. And while Idaho, of course, still has the brand name for potatoes, you know, I'm guessing, you know, there's not a lot of difference between an eastern Oregon potato and an Idaho potato. And, and who knows at the time where he was getting the stuff from.
But, yeah, I, I'm not 100% sure on that one.
Johanna Bringhurst: So it turns out the potatoes are actually difficult to grow. There's quite a bit of factors involved. Can you explain how potatoes are seeded and the challenges in growing the perfect potato for fries?
Blake Lingle: Yeah for sure. I mean, I'm certainly no expert on the growing aspect of it. Probably more on the, frying aspect of it. But, you know, they I think potatoes are really picky, especially where they like to grill. Like, I think you got to get away from the equator, both on the north and south, and then you got to be a little bit higher in elevation, which I think why areas like Idaho or Ireland or Chile, or the whole Andes region are really, you know, productive for potatoes.
And so I don't, I don't know this with absolute certainty, but I'm guessing if you were closer to the equator, potatoes would not grow nearly as well. So they almost need a little heartiness to, you know, their survivors, I would say, for vegetables. And so if you don't have those aspects, you're going to have a difficult time growing potatoes, in my opinion.
As in terms of the process, I would say most farmers these days, you seeds, they kind of they plant them in trenches. They usually put it down about six inches and there's about 12in on each side. And then of course, you know, they dig up those trenches after the potatoes are grown. But you actually don't need to do that.
Like if you're just an individual. You know, most everyone has seen those little sprouts on potatoes that come out of the eye of the potato. Well, you can grow potatoes from those. And so if you're doing it in your backyard, you can just basically you can almost just leave a potato on your counter for a little while, allow it to sprout, push up, you know, pull off the sprouts that come off really easy and then do the same thing, dig some trenches, put them down six inches and you can grow them in your backyard.
So they, well, yeah, they're I'd say trickier than some vegetables because they can also revert, which is really interesting. Like, like at some point, like potatoes, they just I don't know what it is. They will have a strain of potato and eventually it just gets ornery, it decides it wants to become toxic, and it can actually revert to almost like a toxic vegetable.
So they, they have some personality. They like hearty conditions, but nevertheless, you know, you can grow them, especially if you live in Idaho in your backyard.
Johanna Bringhurst: So in your expert opinion, which variety of potatoes make the best fries?
Blake Lingle: Yeah, I would I'm 100% biased here. Let's take this for what it is. But for me, it's the purple Peruvian fry. I think it's got this earthy, nutty flavor. And when I go to Boise Fry Company, which I've eaten there quite a few times in my life, I, you know, that's I get that 90% of the time. It's, with those with garlic and rosemary salt.
That's by far my favorite fry that I, I have anywhere. I also actually really like the yam fries, which a lot of people once again confuse for the sweet potato fries. So this is the red one, not the yellow one. Especially this time of year, I don't know. There's something about that kind of yam, the sweetness of it, and it's almost like a comfort food.
It kind of reminds you of Thanksgiving. And, you know, occasionally Boise Fry Company, we have that marshmallow sauce, which is really good. And so that's, that's the fry that I would get, like the other 10% of the time is the yam fry.
Johanna Bringhurst: When you were creating the Boise Fry Company, did you try just every kind of potato, every way of preparation to figure out what you wanted on the menu?
Blake Lingle: For sure. We tried tons. I mean, we were just we were asking all the purveyors, any farmers that we could get ahold of like, hey, what kinds do you have? Send them in. And we tried like fingerling potatoes. We tried a bunch of different kind of sweet potatoes. I remember we were even reaching out to farmers on the East Coast.
They had a couple varieties that we just couldn't find on the West Coast, just to see if we could try them. And some of it didn't work out. Like I remember we were really fixated on this green potato. I think it was from Maine. And, we could never, could never get it, but, yeah, we must have tried, you know, dozens of different types of potatoes.
And while there's some that we really liked, like, we would keep it, like, occasionally we bring back the Okinawa, which is an Okinawa sweet potato. It's primarily grown in Hawaii. And, you know, but it's it's only grown real seasonally. They don't have a lot of it. So it would be really difficult for us to source it year round.
We just, you know, bring it in for like a month or two. And when it's gone, it's gone type thing. And then eventually we kind of had to whittle it down to, you know, 6 to 7 different vegetables, potatoes that we knew we could get with reasonable certainty, you know, like 90% of the year. And then that's kind of what comprises the menu today, even though we do of course, bring in, you know, brussel sprouts or we'll bring in some other sort of vegetable or potato once or twice a year.
Johanna Bringhurst: Oh, when you were making French fries at Boise Fry Company, what is the secret that you have to making that perfect French fry? You already admitted you're an expert on the fry process.
Blake Lingle: Yeah, I'm not an expert. I know more about frying than I do, I do growing, but, I suppose I can't divulge too much here. You know, I don't want to reveal trade secrets, but, you know, I would say, you know, for your average person, if you're trying to make fries probably the most, and you're not coating the frying anything, like, if you're breading a fry, for example, you can make a good fry.
That's because then the the bread gets real crispy. And and that's what you tend to taste over the actual, vegetable inside of it. So if you're not coating it or adding anything to the tater that I think really the most important thing to look for is the quality of the potato. You know, potatoes have been sitting around, they for too long.
They tend to convert that starch on the inside of the potato to sugar. And while in certain times that could actually make like, especially for certain recipes like a really like better tasting potato in terms of frying it or baking it, it actually makes a worse fry because those sugars basically make it soggy. And it is really hard if there's a potato has a lot of sugar in it, it's really difficult to make that thin, crispy, you know, that's why some of the mass producers and big producers of French fries, you know, they've kind of figured out ways to I, you know, like cut the fries at the ideal moment, add the additives.
So then those like sugars never really appear. And then they kind of stay crispy for the whole entire life. But if you're doing it, the more, you know, organic, all natural way, then yeah, making sure you're getting fresh potatoes that haven't been sitting around too much. Yeah. The fresher the better. That makes that us the best fry, in my opinion.
Johanna Bringhurst: Okay, that is exciting to hear. And you also make the claim that French fries are really not that unhealthy for us. You, start talking. I need to know if French fries are actually a health food.
Blake Lingle: Yeah. I mean, I think they they can be good. Of course. I think there's probably a little bit of tongue in cheek in that, statement, but, I think if you take out, if you strip out, you know, a bunch of the additives, preservatives and chemicals that some fries do have in them, and you don't coat it with anything, so you're not breading it.
You're not putting sugar on it. If it's just basically a vegetable and a good fats. So like an unsaturated or saturated fat, not a trans fat, then in my opinion it can be healthy. It's not that dissimilar than any other, you know, vegetable that you're going to eat or that you're going to prepare. You know, potatoes of course, have antioxidants in them, which is good.
And they tend to be a good like the good carb, you know, the slow and complex carb. You know, I think scientists as even, you know, have even used potato to help with bouts of depression because of the antioxidants and different things in them. So, you know, yeah, it can be good, like almost any vegetable. But I think like anything in life, it needs to be eaten in moderation.
So, you know, I would not say that you should be eating fries every single day of the week. But I don't think you should feel guilty. It's not going to foil your. It's not going to ruin your diet if you have fries, you know, a couple times a week.
Johanna Bringhurst: Okay. That is excellent news for all of us who are listening. I have to ask you to my colleagues here at the Idaho Humanities Council wanted me to ask you about tater tots. We have a fight going in our office about if tater tots actually count as French fries. So what are what's your expert opinion on the tater tot?
Blake Lingle: Yeah, I think they do. I talk about that just a little bit in the book. I definitely think. But then, of course, if you really think about a tater tot, it's essentially a shredded potato, right? A shredded potato that put together and then fried. So then you would really be loosening the definition of a fry to like, even hash browns.
I mean, hash browns are essentially just flattened tater tots. And so even though, you know, for me, it's probably I wouldn't necessarily consider it a fry just because it's not sliced and it's. Yeah, it's kind of reconstituted potato. I mean, I definitely think it's in the fry family, I guess is what I would say. Even at Boise Fry company, we kind of have our own version, which we call a po ball.
We don't always have it on the menu. We just make it occasionally and it's the same thing, you know, we we shred it up and we reconstitute it and then fry it. And, you know, we consider it a fry at Boise Fry Company. So, yeah, I would say it's in the fry family because it's still a vegetable.
That's been somewhat sliced more more likely shredded and then fried. And so by that broad definition, I would consider it a fry.
Johanna Bringhurst: Okay. Good news. That's good news for my team here at the Humanities Council. So like many of, the aspects of our culture like food, there's a political dimension. In your book, you argued that French fries could be a part of bringing about world peace. And in these troubling times, I have to ask you about it. How do you think the humble fry in food in general, can bring about peace?
Blake Lingle: Yeah, I remember when I was writing the book and I asked editors if I should include that section. I think I sent them kind of like a preview of it, and I figured they were just going to laugh me out of the room. They're like, no, that's I mean, because it's already kind of a silly book. It's supposed to be a kind of a coffee table book.
It's not a real serious academic study of the history of French fries. But nevertheless, I thought that was maybe a little bit over the edge, but they thought it was funny. So we ended up including it. So, yeah, of course, you know, fries aren't sitting at the negotiating table and they can't necessarily, bring about world peace.
But I honestly think they can help, you know, like at this point in history, fries are everywhere. They're in, like, every corner of the globe. They're loved by almost everyone. I remember when we adopted, we adopted our daughter from India, and she was from a very, very remote, very small area of India. And when we were there the first time, meeting her like we were just trying to find.
And so we were going to this like super small restaurant in this very remote town in the middle of India. And they had fries on the menu. And this was, you know, ten years ago. And I was just like, this is this is crazy. I cannot believe there's fries here, you know? And, and so, you know, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any person or culture that doesn't love fries.
I think it is really universal. I don't know if we all find some commonality there. That's something that we all can agree on, that we all love fries. Who knows? Maybe it'll just help us find more similarities in each other than differences.
Johanna Bringhurst: I really appreciate you saying that. I think that is, and been so valuable about studying the humanities, is that we learn how much we all have in common, how much we all share. And I do not know a single person that says no to French fries. So I think you may be on to something. Well thank you so much for joining us today to talk about French fries.
I obviously am going to be going home and making some French fries, because I'll be thinking about them all day. Too delicious to pass up.
Blake Lingle: Thank you for being with us. Yeah. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.