French fries: why chips are off the menu at the Paris Olympics | Life and style

Name: french fries.

Age: invented about 300 years ago, ironically in Belgium.

Appearance: long and perfectly golden.

Chips, yeah? It’s the same idea, but pommes frites really are a different thing altogether.

How are they different? They’re just … better.

And you get them in France? Yes, but not everywhere.

Where in France do they not serve french fries? At the Olympic Games.

The whole Olympics, without chips? Specifically, they will not be served to athletes at the 700-foot-long dining hall – reportedly the world’s largest restaurant – in the Olympic Village.

Why not? Are French fries performance enhancing? Not in any sense.

Are they performance detracting? Almost certainly, but the real reason is the fire risk posed by using deep-fat fryers in a space designed to seat more than 3,500 people and serve 45,000 meals a day, round the clock.

Couldn’t they do oven chips? Please, this is France we’re talking about.

What other French cuisine can you not get at this giant French restaurant? While meat will be served, there will be no beef in the bourguignon. Instead, a vegetarian version has been created.

I suppose that’s acceptable. And there will be no foie gras.

Good, I hate foie gras. Because of your ethical concerns over the treatment of animals?

Um, yeah. OK. They are also attempting to address wider environmental concerns. No disposable plates or cutlery will be used. And they won’t offer avocados because of the impact their production and importation has on the climate.

At least avocados aren’t French. In fact, none of the food will be flown in, although up to half a million bananas will be arriving by boat.

Will they be serving any French food at all? Yes, baguettes. And plenty of French cheese.

Ah, and perhaps a full-bodied burgundy? No, no wine. This is a restaurant for the world’s top athletes.

That seems a shame. The Olympic Village restaurant, which is housed in an old power plant in the north of Paris, is also an opportunity for France to show off more modern iterations of its national cuisine. To that end, three top chefs have been drafted in to demonstrate a lighter, more multicultural take on the classics during the course of the Games.

I just hope I can still find something I like there. You will not find anything you like there because, as you are not an Olympian, you will not be allowed in.

Do say: “Can I get some za’atar-spiced sweet potatoes with that?”

Don’t say: “Pardon me, but do you serve anabolic steroids?”