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Fred DeLuca
Fred DeLuca (1947-2015), American entrepreneur, co-founded Subway in 1965 at age 17 with $1,000 from Peter Buck; pioneered the development-agent franchising model and built the world's largest restaurant chain by store count.
Fred L. Turner
Fred L. Turner (Frederick Leo Turner, 1933-2013), McDonald's operations chief, CEO and chairman; wrote the 1958 operations manual, founded Hamburger University, and grew the chain from 15 to over 31,000 restaurants.
Fred Sirieix
Fred Sirieix (born 1972, Limoges) is a French maître d'hôtel in London, general manager of Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows, host of Channel 4's First Dates, founder of National Waiters Day and The Right Course charity.
Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers
Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers is an American fast-casual restaurant chain co-founded in 2002 in Wichita, Kansas, known for thin-pressed steakburgers and freshly churned frozen custard.
Freedom fries
Freedom fries: 2003 US renaming of french fries, coined by Neal Rowland at Cubbie's in Beaufort, North Carolina, and adopted by House cafeterias on March 11, 2003, to protest France's opposition to the Iraq invasion; reversed in 2006.
Freezer burn
Freezer burn is surface dehydration and oxidation of frozen food, also called cold drying. Ice sublimates to vapor where air reaches food, leaving grayish-brown leathery spots; it harms quality, not safety, and is prevented by airtight, moisture-vapor-proof packaging at 0 °F.
French 75 (cocktail)
French 75: classic Prohibition-era cocktail of gin or cognac, lemon juice, sugar, and Champagne, named for the WWI French 75mm field gun; first printed in 1927's Here's How, canonized in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book.
French cuisine
French cuisine: the cooking and food culture of France, from regional dishes and codified techniques to the UNESCO-listed gastronomic meal (2010). 668 Michelin-starred restaurants in 2026; Nouvelle Cuisine, sustainability debates, and tourism appeal distinguish it.
French dip
French dip: American hot sandwich of sliced roast beef on a French roll served au jus, invented in early 1900s Los Angeles, not France. Philippe the Original (1918 Mathieu story) and Cole's (Garlinghouse story) both claim it; Cole's closed in 2026.
French dressing
French dressing names two products: a British/classical vinaigrette of oil, vinegar, and seasonings, and an American sweet, creamy orange dressing with ketchup or tomato ingredients; the FDA revoked its US standard of identity effective February 14, 2022.
French fries
French fries (chips in British English, pommes frites in French) are deep-fried potato batons. Origin is disputed between France and Belgium; earliest printed recipes are Parisian (1775, 1795). Global frozen-fry trade ships 10.6 billion pounds yearly, led by the EU.
French mother sauces
French mother sauces (sauces mères): the five classical bases, béchamel, velouté, espagnole, sauce tomate, and hollandaise, codified by Escoffier in the 1903 Guide Culinaire from Carême's four sauces, each generating daughter sauces like Mornay and béarnaise.
French onion soup
French onion soup (soupe à l'oignon) is a French soup of long-caramelized onions in beef stock, topped with bread and melted Gruyère or Comté, popularized 19th-century at Les Halles in Paris.
French paradox
The French paradox: low coronary heart disease death rates in France despite high saturated fat intake, attributed by Renaud and de Lorgeril's 1992 Lancet paper to red wine, now largely explained by methodological biases.
French press
French press (cafetière, press pot, coffee plunger): a manual immersion coffee brewer with a mesh plunger, patented from the 1852 Mayer-Delforge Paris design through the 1929 Calimani-Moneta Italian patents and 1958 Bondanini version; coarse grind, about four minutes steep, 93 °C water, full-bodied unfiltered coffee.
French toast
French toast, called pain perdu ("lost bread") in France, is bread dipped in egg and milk and fried. Traced to Roman Apicius, named in England c. 1650, popularized in America by French immigrants.
French wine
French wine: wine from France, second-largest world producer behind Italy with 792,000 ha of vines, first in export value (€12.0 bn, 2023), governed by the AOC/AOP appellation system across 17 regions.
French wine grape varieties
French wine grape varieties are the Vitis vinifera cultivars of French origin, defining Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhône, the Loire, and Alsace; 298 are cataloged, but 20 cover about 87% of plantings.
Fricassee
Fricassee (French fricassée) is a white stew of cut-up meat, usually chicken or veal, seared without browning, simmered in stock, and served in a creamy white sauce; the English word dates to 1568.
Fried chicken
Fried chicken: chicken pieces coated in batter or breading and deep-fried, developed in the American South from Scottish and West African traditions; regional styles include Nashville hot, Korean double-fried, and Japanese karaage.
Fried dough
Fried dough: sweet foods made by deep-frying flour-based dough in fat or oil, also called doughnuts, fry bread, or youtiao; defined by dough (not batter), festive origins, and three dough categories.
Fried egg
A fried egg is a whole egg cooked in a pan with butter or oil; styles include sunny side up, over easy, over medium, and over hard, distinguished by flipping and yolk doneness, with FDA guidance of 2 to 3 minutes per side.
Fried ice cream
Fried ice cream, also called deep-fried ice cream, is a dessert of hard-frozen ice cream coated in cereal, crumbs, or tempura batter and briefly deep-fried, popular in Mexican and Japanese restaurant styles.
Fried onion burger
Fried onion burger, also called Oklahoma onion burger or Depression burger: a smash-style hamburger from 1920s El Reno, Oklahoma, in which thinly sliced onions are pressed into a small beef patty, originally a 5-cent Depression-era way to stretch beef.
Friendly's
Friendly's is an American family restaurant and ice cream chain founded in 1935 in Springfield, Massachusetts by the Blake brothers. Once 850 restaurants, now about 87 in 11 Eastern states; restaurants under Brix/Legacy Brands, ice cream brand owned by Dairy Farmers of America.
Frikandel
Frikandel (also frikadel, curryworst): skinless deep-fried Dutch/Belgian minced-meat snack, invented 1954 in Dordrecht by Gerrit de Vries; smooth 18 cm form by Bekkers 1958; ~600 million eaten yearly in the Netherlands.
Frito pie
Frito pie, also called Fritos chili pie, is an American dish of Fritos corn chips topped with chili, cheese, and onions, served in a bag or baked as a casserole; its origin is disputed between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Texas.
Frito-Lay
Frito-Lay, PepsiCo's convenient foods unit formed from the 1961 Frito Company and H.W. Lay merger and the 1965 Pepsi-Cola merger, makes Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos, Tostitos, and Fritos; headquartered in Plano, TX, with roughly 60% of US salty snacks.
Fritos
Fritos is an American brand of corn chips created in 1932 by Charles Elmer Doolin in San Antonio, Texas, and produced since 1961 by Frito-Lay.
Frittata
Frittata: Italian flat, unfolded egg dish, name from friggere (to fry). Eggs beaten lightly with fillings like vegetables, cheese, ham, or pasta; cooked on both sides or finished under a broiler; served in wedges hot or at room temperature.