Bruges Frites and Chocolate Museums
By stan. Filed in Belgium, Chocolate, Europe, Food, Museum |
Every other shop in Bruges, it seems, is a chocolate shop – 50 or so but who’s counting? Bruges, known for its medievalness, has a playful side when it comes to tourist museums, with one for chocolate and another for fries. The chocolate museum started out as a private collection of everything to do with the history and making of chocolate.
You will learn that milk chocolate is 45% sugar, and that when chocolate made its way to Europe by the Spanish explorers, it was a drink with a secret recipe for making it – til the 1800’s. The process of conching was invented around then, which made it possible to create hardened chocolate for eating. You can see the cups they drank it in, and they sure were super-sized. Fries with that?
Chips (fries) were created in the US in 1852 in Saratoga, NY all because of a dissatisfied customer. When he complained to George Crum about his potato, Mr Crum sliced it into little pieces to annoy him. Instead he loved it! French fries were possibly misnamed during WWII when American soldiers, hearing Belgians eating fries and talking French, thought they were French food.
Potatoes around the world are covered too – see if you can find the pink and purple ones. If all this fry talk has gotten you a bit hungry, don’t worry, there’s a fries shop in the basement where you can have them with the traditional mayonnaise or pickle sauce, mustard or curry ketchup.
Tags: Chocolate, conching, customer, french fries, George Crum, mayonnaise, medieval, Museum, potato, Saratoga, soldier, WWII