Going out
Shacks I keep going back to
A frietkot is a hut, a van or a hatch that does fries and not much else. These are mine. I’ve left out names and addresses on purpose: half would be wrong by next year, and the rest deserve their quiet.
Six of them
The Caravan
by a roundabout on the way out of town
A green-and-cream caravan on a patch of gravel. Open in the evenings from Wednesday, shut for most of August when the owners go to the coast like everybody else. Beef fat, fried twice, to order, by a woman who doesn’t say much and once told me my bike light was broken. She was right. These are the best fries I know, and the reason the rest of this site exists.
I order: Middel met andalouse. In winter, stoofvleessaus.
The Level Crossing
a village south of the city
A small brick kot beside a railway crossing. When the barriers come down the cars queue, and a surprising number of drivers get out and order. The fries are thick and a little soft, which I would normally complain about, but the stoofvleessaus is the best I have had outside Rik’s kitchen.
I order: Klein, stoofvleessaus, and a fork, because otherwise it ends up on your sleeve.
The Football One
the side wall of a club canteen
A hatch in the side of an amateur football club’s canteen, open on Sunday afternoons in the season. The fries are fine. That is not why you go. You go to stand in the wind with a cone, watching nine-year-olds lose four-nil while everybody’s dad gives advice.
I order: Klein met, and a coffee from the bar in a plastic cup.
The Late One
near one of the big squares
Open until an hour I am not going to write down. The fries are average. At two in the morning average is exactly right. There is always a queue and always someone singing.
I order: Whatever is quickest. Samurai, judging by my coat.
The Market Van
a weekly market in a town nearby
A van at a Saturday market. The fryer goes on at ten. They cut the potatoes in front of you with a lever cutter bolted to the counter, which is either theatre or the real thing; I have decided it is the real thing.
I order: Groot, half mayo, half pickles, shared on a bench.
Gone
the first one
The first frietkot I ate at in Ghent, a wooden hut with a corrugated roof that had been there longer than the houses round it. The owner retired at the start of 2024 and nobody took it on. It sells bike parts now, which I am trying to be glad about. I still turn my head when I cycle past.
I order: Bart’s order: klein met and a frikandel speciaal. I only ever stole from it.
What a good one does
- Peels and cuts its own potatoes. You can often see the sacks stacked at the back.
- Fries twice, the second time when you order.
- Changes the fat often enough that you can’t smell it from the car park.
- Salts the cone and gives it a flip, so the salt gets all the way down.
- Folds the paper so the sauce doesn’t end up on your shoes.
Ordering
Sizes are usually klein, middel and groot. A small is plenty for one adult at an ordinary level of hunger, and nobody believes me about this until they have tried to finish a groot.
The little fork is a frietvorkje. Nobody uses it for the first five fries.
The snacks
Every kot has a glass-fronted freezer of snacks that get fried while you wait. The ones you’ll meet most:
| Snack | What it is |
|---|---|
| Frikandel | A long, skinless minced-meat sausage, deep-fried. Speciaal means with mayonnaise, curry ketchup and raw onion on top. |
| Boulet | A big meatball, on its own or swimming in sauce. |
| Cervela | A fat pink sausage, fried until the skin splits. |
| Viandel | Spiced minced meat in a crumb coat. The frikandel’s tidier cousin. |
| Kipcorn | Minced chicken in a crunchy cornflake coat. A childhood food for everyone except me. |
| Loempia | A big spring roll. Every frituur seems to sell them and I have never once ordered one. |
Eating it
Standing up, next to the kot or on a car bonnet. In the car only if you accept that the car will smell of fries until Thursday. Never take a cone home on the bike: by the time you’re there they have gone soft in their own steam. I have done this many times and I will do it again.