Why Cold French Fries Taste So Gross

Why Cold French Fries Taste So Gross Fresh, hot french fries are golden, crispy deliciousness, yet cold fries are limp, grainy, and disgusting. How can changing the temperature turn fries from crave-worthy to cringe-worthy? Science has the answer and its all about starch and water. Perfect Fries A Marriage of Starch and Water Potatoes are mostly starch, which is a carbohydrate polymer. When you cook fries, the starch swells with water. The inside of the fry puffs up into tender, tasty goodness. Meanwhile, the processes of carmelization and the Maillard reaction turn the exterior of the fry into golden, flavorful crispness. When french fries cool down, they keep the golden color and the browned flavor, but the water that was on the inside migrates to the outside. This makes fries soggy on the outside, while the inside turns coarse and gritty. Theres no going back. If youve ever tried reheating fries, you know you can bring them back to a semblance of their former glory, but theyll never be quite as good. A lot of the water is gone, never to return to the inside of the fries. This is why frozen partially-cooked fries come coated with a thin layer of ice (and also why soaking cut potatoes in water yields amazing fries). Temperature and French Fry Flavor Temperature also plays a part, particularly with respect to flavor. Warm food has more flavor than cold food because the chemical reactions that enable you to taste food occur more rapidly (up to a point) at a higher temperature. Temperature also affects how readily molecules enter air so that you can smell them. Since the senses of taste and smell are closely aligned, you taste hot foods more because you can smell them better.