Tuesday, November 27, 2012

French Fry Diary 441: Heinz Deep Fries


I have another fries flashback for you here. Back in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Heinz, who besides making obviously their ketchup products among others, also owns Ore-Ida, made a product called Deep Fries. Mostly you could only find them crinkle cut style, but a few times I did find a regular cut straight fries style available.

The big deal with Deep Fries is they had a coating of vegetable oil that was 'activated' as they baked, making them extra crispy and tasting just like deep fried French fries. They were also a bit more expensive, if memory serves. And if you decided to live dangerously and deep fry them they became super crispy (and maybe a tad greasy, but not to their detriment).

I remember the bags were white with a black (cuz its dark inside the oven) pic of the fries sizzling on an oven pan. Like most frozen fries they were par-cooked, but of you ate one before baking they tasted awful. I assume it was the oil. Other frozen fries are a great quick snack, especially in the summer, straight from the freezer. That said, fully cooked is always much better.


I couldn't find many images, but just check out the commercial at 1:30 on the YouTube clip above. As you can see these 'self sizzling' fries were sprayed with vegetable oil to cook them just a bit more. Deep Fries disappeared some time in the 1980s sadly. I liked them a lot.

1 comment:

Victoria Marie Lees said...

I love the frozen French fries. I thought they had oil on them. I prefer them baked in an oven, but my husband only likes them deep fried in oil, like McDonalds. I think they're just as crispy. He says they aren't. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.