"Nowadays, it's easy to claim that something is the best. But when I say here that Tuscan-style fries are the best ever, you'll just have to take my word for it! Admittedly, this type of deep-fried potato sticks is unconventional, but great! I discovered them just over 30 years ago. I was with friends at 'Vipore', a restaurant outside Lucca. It was in the middle of the forest and changed my life forever. The menu featured the usual meat dishes such as bisteccha, tagliata, wild boar ragout and hare sugo. Of course we ordered everything. On the advice of the cameriere, we also ordered the chips. These came on green Carta Paglia, the ubiquitous paper used in Italian gastronomy. Be it as a placemat, as a grease-sucking base for fried food or sometimes as a writing pad for notes or vows of love. Never before and never since - except much later in my kitchen - has such a mundane side dish made us completely forget the steaks and ragouts. We ordered six refills of chips. When they ran out, we sank to our knees in front of the landlord, begged for 'po di più' and promised the chef a place in heaven. But it was no use. We had finished the 'Vipore'.

It was a point of honour that we went there almost every day for the rest of the holiday and ordered chips and bistecca as a side dish. For weeks I tried to coax the recipe out of the landlord, but he remained as mute as his potatoes. 20 years later, during which the 'Vipore' fries kept beckoning me in my dreams, I leafed through a book by the great food writer Jeffrey Steingarten. He was responsible for the food page of the 'New York Times' for 30 years. A true culinary monument. In his collected columns I found the story about the fries in the Tuscan restaurant 'Vipore'!

He had a similar experience to us back then. Only he had managed to do what we chip junkies were denied: to elicit the preparation from the chef! And luckily he shared it with his readers and I am now sharing it with you.

For the preparation you need:

1 kilo of floury potatoes 1.5 litres of tasteless vegetable oil for frying (e.g. peanut oil) 1 bulb of garlic, cloves unpeeled 10 sprigs of thyme, rosemary, sage or other herbs of your choice Sea salt flakes, to taste