Who knew?!

Well, I knew. But then, I've been to Belgium.

Belgium has the best beer in the world, too.

But they have the worst light pollution.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

I knew, too. "Frenching" is a style of cutting.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Not true. We have the best light pollution. No country is as good at light pollution as Belgium. The Sahara, now that has a bad light pollution, they're really miserable at it.

The reason behind the light pollution is quite simple:

-second most densely populated country in the world
-50% nuclear powered
-result: excess energy at night, which is used to light the streets rather than throw away into the ground.

Add to that a lot of glass farming.

I moved to the Netherlands, the most densely populated country in the world. I live right next to Rotterdam. You've seen night pics from me before, light pollution is extreme overhere. Where I lived in Belgium it was better.

I knew about the fries, obviously.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

So I was right?!? Based on the satellite nighttime images of the
Earth and the fact that the Netherlands is as renowned for its
flower-growing as anyplace is renowned for anything... I guessed
that a lot of that light is coming from inside greenhouses. But I
hadn't got around to asking anyone to confirm my guess.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Meh, it's all "chips" to me.

Oh, and light pollution isn't a problem out/up here in the Highlands.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

Anyone try fries with mayonnaise? I first heard about the combination when I was stationed in Germany. When family came for a two week trip around Northern Europe, they were skeptical about it until we hit Brussels. My sister definitely agrees with me that it is a superior way to serve fries.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

what puts me off chip shops is that I don't know whether they put beef fat in with the vegetable oil, to make it taste better.(being a vegi)
I read that McDonald's where sued by some vegetarians because McDonald's claimed their fries where vegi when in fact they were putting beef fat in with oil.
So now I just fry my own.

Another variation on Belgian/French Fries, is the French Canadian method of serving them:

Add cheese curds and gravy, and voila, you have poutine.

Another good combo is chips (that's what we cal french fries) and Mustard, or chips and soy sauce.

Also .. try hot chips dipped in beer! Really good!!

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Halal and Kosher generally don't use animal based oils. I don't know how many halal or kosher fast food shops there are around you but it's an option.

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Belgium on the other hand is not renowned for flower-growing, but there too are a lot of greenhouses. We want to grow lots of things and all the year through, even the the climate is not suitable for that.

What you see from space are not only greenhouses though. You see highways, cities, towns, industry... Remember that (in Flandres at least) almost every street, large, small and tiny, is fully lit at night.


As for fries with mayonaisse: *duh*. Sorry, overhere* that's stating the obvious .

*in Belgium!! In the Netherlands, you have to do quite a job to get
a) mayonaisse at all on your fries, as they tend to give something different called "fries sauce" even though you asked for mayo
b) decent mayo; it tends to be overly sweet.
c) good fries.

IN Belgium, you can go pretty much everywhere to get an excellent portion of fries with the best mayo. Do be careful when asking a "large one", because you might very well end up with a PILE of fries in front of you. We order one large one for 2 persons, and can't eat it all.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Fries with muscles!!! A classic whenever you visite the belgian North Sea Coast... Together with a nice abbey beer, hmmm!

No mayo for me though...

For my former employee, I regularly had to go to the Netherlands too: they'll just about fry anything in sight over there... And swallow it down with this kind of yoghurt.

muscles?

You're right about the frying in the Netherlands .

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

I don't know about that Gillian. I've frenched a lot of girlfriends and I have never cut a single one of them!

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Make that mussels... Though a mussel is essentially not much more then a muscle, anyway.

First lunch I had over there was in fact mussels with fries... Well, fried mussels with fries, that is. It was nearly impossible to tell the difference between them, they may have just as well heated up a plate of corn flakes...

Man, I'll eat fried clams but I won't eat mussels....

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Anyone ever tried fries dipped in chocolate shakes. Frosties from Wendy's work about the best, but they are really just frozen hot chocolate.

Supposedly "fry sauce", a mix of ketchup and mayo, is a Utah creation. It was even on an Olympic pin in 2002, along with our Green Jello.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Tog... I was doing that back in the 60's

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...