So, no, we don't officially know the origins for sure, but the most credible story is fry is traced back to 17th century Belgium, where poor villagers living in the Misu Valley ate fried fish they caught from the river. During the winter, when the water would freeze over and there were no fish, they would fry potatoes instead, which were cheap to produce and newly imported from America. During World War I, American soldiers nicknamed them French fries because French was the dominant language of southern Belgium