Belgium: are all frites frozen?

Belgium prides itself on lace, chocolate, beer, mussels and "pommes frites", french fries.

On our recent visit to the country, we sampled frites in several restaurants both casual and of higher prestige. Frites was on the menu almost always accompanying meat and seafood fare. We were expecting something special: hand cut, deliciously fried morsels to set their merits apart from industrial, precut potatoes that make a mother's dinner preparation easy and fast in the States. Alas, quite the opposite.

In all cases the fries arrived in bowls or plates absolutely uniform in shape, tepidly fried, almost wilted and remarkably like what we have learned to expect from the Oreida food processing giant. Almost all were thickly cut affairs with a pale yellow color, uncrisp, healthfully cooked in vegetable oil. Nothing to justify their calories or to fullfill the well deserved sin of eating something worthwhile just .. once in a while. At the Armes de Bruxelles we were served the thick cut variety and another Mc Donald like slender cut specifically designed to accompany a different dish; both servings had the same industrial uniformity of shape and texture. We asked the waiter about this and he looked indignant and said "mais, non madam" of course they were all cut by hand on the premises and lovingly prepared especially for each serving. How we could not believe him!