Interesting Facts

Interesting Food?  Olympics? Have I gone mad? No, but I am incensed, because this little factlet is about French fries at the Olympics. The fast food chain  McDonald’s has been given sole rights to offer French fries by the International Olympic Committee, because they are the official restaurant sponsor for London 2012 and have paid a small fortune for the privilege. (The 800 other eateries at Olympic venues nationwide will be allowed to sell the British favourite fish and chips — but not chips on their own. A note posted at the Olympic venue reads, “Due to sponsorship obligations with McDonald’s, Locog have instructed the catering team they are no longer allowed to serve chips on their own. The only loophole to this is if it is served with fish. Please understand this is not the decision of the staff serving up your meals, who given the choice would gladly give it to you. However they are not allowed.” Now IMHO there is no problem - French fries are not chips...

Britain has been named the chip capital of the world, with 16 different kinds of chips on offer (not to be confused with crisps, or Intel). (A survey by Tesco found 16 chip types, and 13 regional preferences. They included: Homestyle - oven chips that go crispy Home fries - chunky chips with a fluffy texture Steakhouse - long and straight. Rustic - with the skin on one side Holden fries - with a crispy turmeric and paprika coating Frying chips - small and thin Then there are: crinkle home fries, chunky oven, crinkle oven, straight cut oven, thin & crispy oven, crispy French fries, chunky homefries, beer battered, curly fries and low fat oven. Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2985679/UK-is-world-leader-with-16-chip-types.html#ixzz0ovfJOL3O

Scientists at Leeds University have isolated the tempting smell of chips. (Using a process known as gas chromatography mass spectrometry to isolate some 46 different compounds they then asked people to describe what they smelt like. Some of the smells they identified included butterscotch, cocoa, onion, flowers, cheese, and, believe it or not, ironing boards. It sounds like they asked Jilly Goolden to take part.)

According to figures from RoSPA (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents)chip pans are the second biggest cause of accidental house fires in Britain. (Seemingly most chip pan fires are caused by men cooking after they have been drinking. The moral of this story is don't drink and fry.)

The next generation of chip will pack more than four hundred million transistors into an area the size of a postage stamp. (That is of course computer chip, not french fry chip.)