French Fry Trivia
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55 free French Fry trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
52 free French Fry trivia questions with answers. French fries are the most-eaten side dish on Earth, and almost everything about them is contested: Belgium and France both claim to have invented them, the oldest written record of fried potatoes actually comes from Chile, and the United States once had Congress rename them. This quiz covers all of it — the origin dispute, the two-bath frying method, why McDonald's fries tasted different after 1990, the handshake deal that put frozen fries in every fast-food kitchen, and the global family of fry dishes from poutine and patatje oorlog to slap-chips and salchipapas. Easy questions ask what the British call fries and which Canadian province gave us poutine; harder ones dig into which potato cultivar dominates the industry, the year Arby's launched curly fries, and the Utah restaurant chain that popularised fry sauce. It works as a food-trivia round for a pub quiz, a bar-night warm-up, or a solo test for anyone who thinks they know their frites. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on French fries, poutine, freedom fries and the companies and dishes involved, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 55 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Britain and Ireland, what are American-style potato chips called?
Crisps
Crisps is the British and Irish word, because 'chips' there already means the thick-cut fried potatoes that Americans call fries.
Q 02Poutine, the dish of fries topped with cheese curds and gravy, comes from which Canadian province?
Quebec
Quebec is the birthplace: poutine appeared in rural snack bars in the late 1950s, in dairy country where cheese factories could supply the fresh, squeaky curds.
Q 03In which Quentin Tarantino film does a hitman back from Amsterdam marvel that the Dutch drown their fries in mayonnaise?
Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction's Vincent Vega saves the detail for last: his partner Jules enjoys hearing about the 'Royale with Cheese' and 'Le Big Mac', but the mayonnaise makes him groan in disgust.
Q 04In March 2003, US House cafeterias replaced the word "French" on their fries and toast with what word?
Freedom
They became 'freedom fries' and 'freedom toast': Representatives Bob Ney and Walter B. Jones ordered the renaming in March 2003 over France's opposition to the Iraq War; the menus quietly reverted in 2006.
Q 05Which fast-food chain introduced its spiral-shaped Curly-Q Fries in 1988?
Arby's
Arby's put Curly-Q Fries on its menu in 1988, but the spiral cut is far older: an Oklahoma City restaurant was already selling 'Suzi-Q' curly fries decades earlier.
Q 06Until 1990, McDonald's cooked its fries mainly in which fat?
Beef tallow
Beef tallow gave McDonald's fries their rich, buttery taste until 1990, when worries about cholesterol pushed the chain to drop animal fat; it then added beef flavouring to keep the taste.
Q 07Which US president served 'potatoes served in the French manner' at the White House in 1802?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson picked up the taste while US minister to France in the 1780s, and a recipe in his own hand describes raw potatoes deep-fried in small slices.
Q 08The oldest known written mention of fried potatoes describes a 1629 meal among the Mapuche in which country?
Chile
Chile's claim rests on Francisco Núñez de Pineda's 1673 memoir Cautiverio feliz, which recalls Mapuche women serving 'papas fritas' during his captivity in 1629.
Q 09Art historian Paul Ilegems has suggested which Spanish saint cooked the first fries?
Teresa of Ávila
Teresa of Ávila was Ilegems's candidate: Spain was the first European country to receive the potato, and frying in oil was already a Mediterranean habit.
Q 10In which Belgian city is a museum of potato fries that styles itself the world's first and only?
Bruges
Bruges got its fries museum in 2008 from Eddy Van Belle, the man behind the city's chocolate museum Choco-Story, after he found that no museum of fries existed anywhere in the world.
Q 11A Belgian journalist claimed potatoes were fried in the Meuse valley before 1680 as a substitute for what?
Frying fish when rivers froze
Jo Gérard's story was that villagers took to frying potatoes as a substitute for frying fish when rivers froze; he never produced the 1781 manuscript, and the potato did not reach the Meuse region until around 1735.
Q 12In Belgium, fries are traditionally served in what kind of container?
A paper cone
A paper cone, the cornet de frites, is the classic serving at Belgian fry stalls, where fries are a meal in themselves rather than a side, finished with a spoonful of mayonnaise on top.
Q 13In the two-bath method for fries, what is the job of the first, cooler bath of fat?
Q 21The Dutch street food 'patatje oorlog' translates literally as what?
War fries
War fries is the literal meaning, 'oorlog' being Dutch for war: mayonnaise, raw onion and a peanut satay sauce the Dutch borrowed from Indonesian cooking, in a mix that changes from region to region.
Q 22In Cape Town, soft, soggy fries doused in white vinegar are known by what name?
Slap-chips
Slap-chips ('slap' is Afrikaans for limp) are fried at a lower temperature for longer than usual, then soaked in vinegar; they are the essential filling of the Gatsby, Cape Town's giant sandwich.
Q 23In Australia, what seasoning is a popular addition to hot chips?
Chicken salt
Cooking the potato through
Cooking the potato through is the first bath's job, at about 160 °C, and it can be done well ahead; a brief second fry in hotter fat then makes the outside crunchy to order.
Q 14Ray Kroc of McDonald's sealed a handshake deal for frozen fries with which Idaho potato baron?
J. R. Simplot
J. R. Simplot had been freezing fries since the 1940s; the handshake with Ray Kroc began a supply deal that lasted decades and helped make the Idaho businessman a billionaire.
Q 15Which potato cultivar dominates North American french fry production?
Russet Burbank
Russet Burbank, a russet-skinned mutation of Luther Burbank's 1870s Burbank potato, is the standard fry potato for McDonald's and the big Idaho processors because of its long shape and high dry matter.
Q 16McCain Foods opened its first frozen-fry plant in 1957 beside the Saint John River in which Canadian province?
New Brunswick
New Brunswick was home: the McCain brothers, sons of a seed-potato exporter, built the plant in their own village of Florenceville, turning the family's crop into frozen fries.
Q 17By legend, puffy pommes soufflées were born in 1837 when a chef re-fried potatoes at a banquet opening what?
A railway line
A railway line from Paris to Saint-Germain was being inaugurated; the story, which historians dispute, has the chef drop potatoes he had fried earlier back into the oil and watch them puff up.
Q 18Ore-Ida invented Tater Tots in 1953 from what?
Leftover slivers from fry production
Tater Tots began as leftover slivers from fry production at Ore-Ida, which the Grigg brothers chopped, seasoned and formed into little logs in 1953; the brand name fuses Oregon and Idaho.
Q 19In which US state was fry sauce, the pink ketchup-and-mayonnaise blend, popularised?
Utah
Utah is fry sauce's home: by the best-known account, Don Carlos Edwards mixed the pink sauce at his Salt Lake City barbecue stand in the 1940s and took it to his Arctic Circle drive-ins.
Q 20In 2018 Heinz promised to sell which sauce in US stores if 500,000 people voted yes in a Twitter poll?
Mayochup
Mayochup, a mayonnaise-ketchup blend, reached US shelves in September 2018 once the poll passed its target; many replies pointed out that the mix already existed as fry sauce.
Chicken salt was mixed by Peter Brinkworth in Gawler, South Australia, in the 1970s to season rotisserie chickens; it took off after one of his chip-shop customers tried it on hot chips.
Q 24In June 2004, the US Department of Agriculture classified batter-coated French fries as what?
A vegetable
A vegetable, and a 'fresh' one: the trade-law label meant a bankrupt food distributor had to pay its fry suppliers in full, and the USDA stressed that it said nothing about nutrition.
Q 25Argentina's salsa golf, a ketchup-and-mayonnaise cousin of fry sauce, is credited to a man who later won what?
A Nobel Prize
A Nobel Prize went to Luis Federico Leloir, who by legend grew bored of plain mayonnaise on his prawns at a Mar del Plata golf club in the 1920s, stirred in ketchup, and let his friends name the result.
Q 26In French, thick-cut fries of about 10 mm are named after which Paris landmark?
Pont Neuf
Pont Neuf, Paris's oldest standing bridge despite a name meaning 'New Bridge', is where one enduring story has street vendors selling the first fries in the 1780s; chefs still call the thick cut pommes Pont-Neuf.
Q 27Fernand Lachance supposedly coined 'poutine' in 1957 by saying curds in fries would make what?
A damn mess
'Ça va faire une maudite poutine!' ('that'll make a damn mess') is what Fernand Lachance is said to have told the customer who asked for curds in his bag of fries; other towns tell rival origin stories.
Q 28Chef Martin Picard pushed poutine onto upscale menus in the early 2000s by topping it with which luxury ingredient?
Foie gras
Foie gras poutine at Picard's bistro Au Pied de Cochon was soon imitated: chefs elsewhere answered with lobster and braised-beef versions, and a boom in poutine shops followed in the early 2010s.
Q 29'Disco fries', with mozzarella and brown gravy, were popularised by diners in which US state?
New Jersey
New Jersey diners made disco fries a staple, the Tick Tock in Clifton claiming the invention; the name is said to come from the 1970s crowds who piled in hungry after a night at the disco.
Q 30Carne asada fries, topped with grilled steak, guacamole and cheese, originated in which California city?
San Diego
San Diego taco shops created it: local lore credits Lolita's Mexican Food, where a supplier suggested serving the steak-and-fries filling of the city's California burrito on a plate instead.