Item of the Week: Mitraillette

Let's talk about food again for the item of the week... A small notice: this item is not the kind of cuisine I would recommend for a healthy lifestyle, so don't abuse it. It is called a mitraillette [me-try-IT!], meaning a "sub-machine gun" in French!

Mitraillettes can be found all over the country in a place called friterie or frituur, where fries are traditionally sold in a small bar or a van (a bit like fish'n'chips places in the UK), but also in restaurants and cafés sometimes. You can also find them in the region of Lille in France, where people share with us the same fries culture. In my city, Liège, the dish can also be called a routier ("truck driver" or "road (dish)" depending on the interpretations) and in France they call it an Américain!

The sandwich, consisting of half of a baguette, some fried meat (for example, fricadelle), some sauce (mayonnaise, etc.) and... lots of fries(!), is a revolution. An American friend once said "Who would have thought of putting all these things together... in a bread? The Belgians of course!"

I personally don't like eating it too often, but I gave it a try several times, because I was really, really hungry. Sometimes there are different sizes of sandwiches, so I would advise you to start with a small one or share a regular one with other people... In fact, the taste is not very surprising and not that different from eating fries and a hot dog separately... I can add that there are usually so many fries you use a small plastic fork to eat a whole bunch of them just because you feel frustrated of not being able to put the whole sandwich in your mouth.


I don't know why this fries sandwich emerged here and became so popular... Well, on further reflection, I remember that, as a kid, I always put some fries in my hamburger, so maybe it came naturally to us... But now there are even mitraillette versions of dürüms in kebab bars, or mitraillette burgers in some famous fast food lines! Let's say that all kinds of food got "machine-gunned" with fries in Belgium...

What is your experience of mitraillette? Share it in a comment!