David Beckham Bites Off More Than He Can Chew

Internet auction sites are slinging a single french fry that reportedly fell from the mouth of international soccer star David Beckham while he was on holiday in New Zealand.  The tasty tater has already fetched a bid of one New Zealand dollar—about 76 US cents.  While this certainly is a big story that begs many ancillary questions (did, for instance, Beck’s wife, waifish thin Posh Spice, knock the fry away from his lips as a means of calorie counting?), we also wonder if it might not create friction between  the peoples of New Zealand and Belgian, the country that has long claimed the thin fried potato as its  original creation.   Belgian culinary historians claim the first potatoes were fried in 1680 by poor inhabitants living near a river who had the custom of accompanying their meals with small fried fish, but when the water was frozen and they were unable to fish, they cut potatoes lengthwise and fried them in oil instead.