Potatoes cooked in hot oil have gone from snack to menu staple

French fries, once the snack of ball games, bowling lanes, and clam shacks, are now on every sort of menu.

Today's fries, however, aren't just shoestrings in a clever presentation. Chefs are sprinkling them with all kinds of sea salt, grated cheeses such as gruyere, aromatics like truffle oil - and sometimes all of those at once.

They're so good you wonder if you should skip the appetizers entirely and tuck into a big stack. The simplest fries, known as bistro fries, are long and slender and only lightly colored, a more soulful take on the McDonald's classic.