The Frierarchy

Well, it’s just about lunchtime at the Ratty, which means it’s time to eat some French Fries. As some of you may know, overthinking food is kind of my thing. As such, I have created a complex ranking of all the Ratty fry offerings known as “The Frierarchy.” The Challenge blog appeared to me as the perfect opportunity to lock the document into Internet Immortality. So without further adieu, here it is.

1.) Sweet Potato Fries-They’re simply the best! Better than all the rest! But seriously. sweet potato fries were the original inspiration for the Frierarchy. Back in my Sophomore year, I began writing an editorial to post in the BDH about how dining services should serve sweet potato fries during every single meal. I know many of you disagree, but I don’t care.

Sweet potato fries (or SPF) are far superior to standard potato fries due to their strong flavor profile. More than any other type of fry, they are delicious without the addition of condiments, but still are excellent with far more condiments than standard fries. They have the versatility of a spork with a little knife on the handle, as long as that knife is not sharp enough to cut your hand. Ketchup, honey mustard, you name it. They’re great.

SPF are also the go to side dish (along with coleslaw) for my favorite food genre: Texas Barbecue. They taste and look excellent next to every barbecue meat, from brisket to baby back ribs. Also, there was one day for lunch last year that sweet potato fries were served on the same day as the taco bar and I almost lost my mind.

In addition to the roots, the leafy greens of the Sweet Potato plant (or Ipomea batatas) are also edible and delicious. Interestingly, even though yams and sweet potatoes are different plants, the USDA requires both to be labeled as “sweet potatoes.” Sweet potatoes make a nutritious complement to any lunch, with their complex carbohydrates, Vitamins A and C, and beta-keratin. The Center for Science in the Public Interest ranked sweet potatoes has having the highest nutritional value of any vegetable. In conclusion, sweet potato fries are the best variety of fry due to their magic mix of brains and brawn.

2.) Curly Fries-Coming in at a close number two is the curly fry. They earn their prestigious placement on the Frierarchy because they are the most joyous of all the fries. Everyone knows that feeling they get when they pick up a seemingly infinite helix of potato. The unbroken string of fry is symbolic of the hope that al of humankind feels in their youth, when the world seems full of opportunities and hope. Nothing can bring you down. Eventually, though, you find the end of the fry and feel the tinge of disappointment. But then you remember, you are holding a delicious fry in your hand, and everything will turn out ok in the end. Your idealism may have but put into doubt, but the world still is full of hope and beauty. I kind of lost track of this metaphor, but I really like curly fries. They had good ones in the Roy Rogers restaurants in the rest stops of the New York thruway when I was a kid. 

3.) Crinkle Cut Fries-Strong technical specifications bring crinkle cut fries to the Bronze medal position on the Frierarchy. The Crinkles provide good pore space, so condiments and seep through to the bottom fries on a fry pile. The high surface area and hyperbolic curves of the exterior are ideal for dipping. The Ratty variety is rarely soggy and sometimes comes with a good crispiness and crunch. I would say that Crinkle cut is the best variety of fry for nacho cheese sauce, an important factor in any fry’s ranking. They are also the closest Ratty category to Nathan’s fries, my personal favorite fast food brand French fry. 

4.) Tater Tots- Tots are in interesting niche fry. They are far and away the top breakfast fry. Also, I rank them pretty close to the top of late night fries. When the first Sonic opened on Long Island about a year ago, I went at like one in the morning and ordered a platter of tots smothered in chili and cheese. It was delicious and hit the spot, and was also served straight to the car by a person on roller skates. That was an awesome experience, but tots still barely miss the Frierarchy podium and leave only with an Honorable Mention ribbon.

5.) Waffle Fries-Legend has it the Paul McCartney imagined the melody to the classic song “Yesterday” in a dream. However, the lyrics were not in the dream, so during the initial recording process, instead of the lyrics we all know and love, he used the line “Scrambled Eggs, Oh my darling how I love your legs.” Recently, when he appeared as a guest on the Jimmy Fallon late show, he performed a version of “Yesterday” based on those original lyrics. (here’s the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpjOZGxk5Ys)  Anyway, in that song, there’s a verse about waffle fries, and it includes the lyric “They’re just like regular fries, but shaped like a waffle.” That just about sums it up. That song along moved waffle fries up 2 notches in the Frierarchy. 

6.) Spicy Fries-I admit that I have no real understanding of how Ratty fries are actually made. I could be wrong, but it feels like some love went into making the fries. It’s entirely possible that the fries come pre-seasoned and are thrown into the frialator. But I chose to believe that someone in BDS painstakingly concocted the seasoning and spice mix for each fry batch. 

7.) Seasoned Fries-I don’t know if it’s just me, but I think seasoned fries are basically the same thing, except minus one kind of seasoning (the spicy kind).

8.) Standard French Fries-This seems like a pretty obvious one. They’re the fries we all know and like a decent amount. French fries have a lot of positive qualities, but everything above them on this list has some sort of added benefit. 

9.) Steak Fries- OK, so steak fries have some serious problems. Fries should be the standard of consistency in Western Society, but steak fries undermine this. First of all, they have a poor surface area to volume ratio. This often leads to a problem if you get fries straight out of the frying. The outside cools quickly, but the inside says extremely hot much longer than it should, leading to dangerous mouth burns that can ruin a lunch. Also, they have very low pore space, leaving all the condiments at the top of a fry pile and bone-dry potato chunks at the bottom. 

Another problem is that since the average size is so large, there can be significant variability in individual fry sizes, a problem for any cooking process. Some larger fries can have undercooked interiors, and the smaller fries are commonly burnt and not very tasty. In sum, I’m not very pleased about the selection of steak fries today.

10.) No Fries At All

11.) Onion Rings-As the great and very French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre probably once said, “I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant. Also, fuck onion rings. Onion rings are the worst.”

Let me tell you all a brief story. Back in my meal plan days, Friday was a miserable time. I had a terrible choice between breaded processed quasi-chicken meat and breaded partially decayed vegetable matter. It was awful. As a gluten-phobe, Brown dining on Fridays is the worst thing that could possible happen. This eventually led to the tradition that Joanna Lustig ’13 and I had, called “Panini Finger Friday.” 

My point is that onion rings are awful and terrible and bad. It’s soggy, shitty breadcrumbs that can’t form a cohesive bond with the pale, flavorless onion strip. Nobody in the world has ever said,  “Man, it’s Friday, I wish I had some janky root vegetables covered with poison.” Nobody has said that. They’re gross and make me sad.