Exactly who introduced these golden strips of goodness to the world isn’t entirely known. Among the various theories, it’s generally accepted that the French fry was invented by either the Belgians or the French.
Potatoes were first introduced to Europe not through the French or Belgians, but through the Spanish. In 1537, Jimenez de Quesada and his Spanish forces encountered a village in Colombia where all the natives had fled. Among other things, they found in the native’s food stuffs potatoes, which the Spanish initially called “truffles”.