There was a discussion a few days ago which mentioned, among other things, the name change from French fries to freedom fries at the beginning of the Irak war. I wanted to write a post about this but now I can't find the post. Can somebody give me the reference? Thanks.

Ophelia, to locate a posting to BookTalk, use Google. For example, to find the post that contained "freedom fries", enter into Google's search window:

BookTalk.org "freedom fries"

And Google returns:

http://www.booktalk.org/post12475.html

Thanks Tom!

Tom, with your search method, i have found one (very interesting) post at BT, but not the one i was looking for, so I'm going to answer here, and perhaps the writer will take me back to the thread.

There is an entry at wiki on the subject.

On March 11, 2003, Representatives Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and Walter B. Jones, Jr. (R-North Carolina) declared that all references to French fries and French toast on the menus of the restaurants and snack bars run by the House of Representatives would be removed. House cafeterias were ordered to rename French fries to "freedom fries". This action was carried out without a congressional vote, under the authority of Ney's position as Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, which oversees restaurant operations for the chamber. The simultaneous renaming of French toast to "freedom toast" attracted less attention.[1]

This is now several years ago, and I can't remember whether this had any impact in France, like being mentioned in the news.
The thing is, the French don't consider fries (we call them "frites") to be a national product, anymore than eggs or tomatoes.
We eat them and like them, like everybody else, but that's all. You'd never find them on the menu of a good French restaurant.
We think the Belgians (and then the the Americans and the British) are the ones who eat fries in large quantities.
If we teach our pupils the English word for it, we teach them to say "chips" (the British word). Only a smalll minority of French people know that in the US, they are called "French Fries". So, the change of name in retaliation for our bad behaviour would have been totally incomprehensible, linguistically, for French people, apart from the tiny minority of people like me, who had a good laugh.

I once ordered "french toast" in California, and I am absolutely sure that no such thing is ever served in France.

NOW, if bottles of Champagne had been re-branded "Freedom Coke", that might have caused a stir.

Sorry my method didn't work for you, and I'd like to know why. Could you have encountered "freedom fries" somewhere else? The story about French fries I had heard was that they were commonly called "German fries" but the name was changed during WWI because of anti-German sentiment. Wikipedia doesn't repeat that story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_fries

Oh,and also, there may be an element of ironic humor in the name "French fries." French is associated with the elegant, sophisticated, stylish -- the opposite of French fries.

Sorry my method didn't work for you, and I'd like to know why

Your method should work, but google only gave me one post from Booktalk.org with "french fries", and it wasn't the one i was looking for.
But generally I think it's a very good way of looking for a post.

We actually have a "Search" feature up top below the green navigation bar. Look directly to the right of the "Rules" link.

Chris OConnor wrote:We actually have a "Search" feature up top below the green navigation bar. Look directly to the right of the "Rules" link.

Thanks, Chris. It works well. This may be what Ophelia is looking for:

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 4:19 pm Post subject:

I don't think France or UK owe us any thanks.

. . . .

"What was our reaction to a criticism? Freedom Fries. I bet that really hurt the french.... or maybe it made us look like a bunch of childish jackasses. Certainly we shouldn't think about what they were saying to us."

http://www.booktalk.org/should-the-us-i ... 80-30.html