Idk if I have the formulation right on this but I imagine it’s a combination of various things:
Conservative nostalgia, concretely for fries themselves and abstractly for a fake, idealised version of the past.
Crackpot health woo: beef tallow is “carnivore” and “caveman” diet-coded. It’s not a processed/GMO seed oil.
Conspiracy by US Big Dairy to beef up their numbers.
I can’t speak for the taste. However, the fat used to fry fries does make a difference, as fat is a conveyance of flavour. Many fry recipes call for peanut oil, for example, while many people prefer using a neutral oil like canola to deep fry. I don’t think I know instinctively what the taste of beef tallow is like, but I imagine it’s just… beefy?
Notably different oils have different smoke points, meaning you can fry at higher temperatures for different textures. That’s why duck fat potatoes are a thing, for example.
Malcolm Gladwell famously has a podcast episode on the crusade against beef tallow, where he also replicates mcdonalds fries with beef tallow. But Gladwell is a chud, so fuck all that.
Conservative nostalgia, concretely for fries themselves and abstractly for a fake, idealised version of the past.
This is so weird to me like you can literally just go out and have fries today and they’re great? They’re so much better now because there’s so many different places that literally just sell fries with various sauces so they have to be in an arms-race for the most delicious kind of sauce and the best fries. Plus everyone now offers sweet potato fries if you’re bored of the normal ones. There’s never been a better time for fries. When I was a kid fries fucking sucked man, and they had only ketchup.
Idk if I have the formulation right on this but I imagine it’s a combination of various things:
I can’t speak for the taste. However, the fat used to fry fries does make a difference, as fat is a conveyance of flavour. Many fry recipes call for peanut oil, for example, while many people prefer using a neutral oil like canola to deep fry. I don’t think I know instinctively what the taste of beef tallow is like, but I imagine it’s just… beefy?
Notably different oils have different smoke points, meaning you can fry at higher temperatures for different textures. That’s why duck fat potatoes are a thing, for example.
Malcolm Gladwell famously has a podcast episode on the crusade against beef tallow, where he also replicates mcdonalds fries with beef tallow. But Gladwell is a chud, so fuck all that.
This is so weird to me like you can literally just go out and have fries today and they’re great? They’re so much better now because there’s so many different places that literally just sell fries with various sauces so they have to be in an arms-race for the most delicious kind of sauce and the best fries. Plus everyone now offers sweet potato fries if you’re bored of the normal ones. There’s never been a better time for fries. When I was a kid fries fucking sucked man, and they had only ketchup.
100%. Nostalgia is a toxic impulse.