While the maxim's authors were no doubt hoping to promote the ingestion of healthful food, the saying takes on new meaning today. "You are what you eat," the banners boldly proclaimed. Growing up in the 1970s, there was a popular saying splashed on schoolroom banners. The war in Iraq might be over, but eating remains a geopolitical statement. "That's absurd," I laughed incredulously.
So long, Grey Poupon (which I'll get to later). No more French toast! No more French vanilla yogurt! Goodbye, baked Brie. Our Gallic allies had, after all, exercised their democratic right to dissent. Never mind that the French themselves consider fries a Belgian specialty patriotic Americans - inhabitants of the world's great democracy - would not tolerate the very "Frenchness" of fried potatoes. While we sipped our French Bordeaux, Salles and my husband, Cedric, accurately predicted over my vehement protests that it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the nation caught on to freedom fries. now, there was a way to feel good about feeding that all-American cholesterol-and-fat habit! (Of course, removing "French" fries from the menu altogether would be impossible, we laughed.) But reincarnating the humble fried potato stick as a symbol of freedom. The congressional cafeteria, Salles reported, had renamed its french fries "Freedom Fries" in protest of France's opposition to the United States' military action in Iraq. On his 12-hour journey westward, the well-loved Austin chef and culinary instructor told me he had learned on National Public Radio that the most American of hamburger accompaniments - the french fry - was now politically incorrect. Two months ago, at the outset of the war, my friend Jean-Luc Salles visited me in Santa Fe, my new home. I've just returned from a place where french fries have little to do with "freedom." Comfortably installed at a Parisian sidewalk cafe for lunch recently, freedom came into play only in my decision to devour the salty fried potato batons that curved around my plate as opposed to leaving them there because they were. On French Fries, Grey Poupon, and Good Old American Apple Pie
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