Who invented "french" fries ?

@ Deborah :
Initially, those French toast are called 'Pain perdu' in french, (lost bread). It's a recipe that permit doing something with those hardened loafs of french breads... My grandmother do them better ! :D

and french fries, I beleive, is because GI got to know them first in France, and not in Belgium. In France, fries are associated with Belgiums, as well as many stupid jokes...

From the Online Etymoligical Dictionary:

French
O.E. frencisc "of the Franks" (see frank). Euphemistic meaning "bad language" (pardon my French) is from 1895. Used in many combination-words, often dealing with food or sex. French fries is 1918 Amer.Eng., from French fried potatoes (1894, first attested in O.Henry); French dressing first recorded 1900; French toast is from 1660.

Thanks, Dom. I remember now that French toast is supposed to be made with stale bread, but bread never lasted long enough in our house to get stale.

Then there's that creamy, orange abomination in a bottle, called "French dressing," that's sold in the US. I never came across a salad dressing in France that looks or tastes like it.

What are some foods from other countries that have a nationality affixed to the name?

Paella - Spain
Gazpacho - Spain

English muffins
Scotch (!) broth
Welsh rarebit
Irish stew

More local:

Banbury cakes
Bakewell tarts
Dundee marmalade
Yorkshire pudding
Pontefract cakes
Devon cream tea (tea + scones, cream and strawberry jam)
Cornish pasty
Eccles cakes
Cheddar cheese
Stilton cheese
Wensleydale Cheese
Double Gloucester cheese
Red Leicester cheese
Cheshire cheese
Lancashire cheese
Caerphilly cheese
Lancashire hotpot
Wiltshire ham
Norfolk dumplings

Danish pastry is called Kopenhagener in Vienna and wienerbrød (= Vienna bread) in Copenhagen!

Famous Norwegian cheeses:
Jarlsberg (area in eastern Norway)
Norvegia (Norway in Latin)

I've seen Jarlsberg on sale in the supermarket I work in.

In my list I forgot Melton Mowbray pork pies.....yummy but calorifical terrifical.

Had a very busy day...time for tea now....maybe a Bath bun (if I only had one....they're yummy too if you like currants).

Another Belgian dish :

French Fries with Mussels
<MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM>

I didn't phrase my question very accurately. What I meant was, what are some foods with a foreign nationality affixed to their names, that do not have that name in the other country? For example, what we call French toast in the US is not a translation of what the dish is called in France. Fredrik's example of Danish pastry is what I had in mind. Maybe Damian's first set of examples are also what I had in mind, but I don't know whether, for example, Irish stew is known as Irish stew in Ireland.

Does French toast also have that name in the UK?

By the way, Damian, if you've never had Jarlsberg cheese (I couldn't tell from what you wrote), you should try it -- it's one of my favorites. And it makes a delicious fondu.

"Do the French (or the Belgians) eat something like what we in the U.S. call "French toast?" That's bread dipped in a mixture of eggs and milk, then cooked in a frying pan, and served with butter and some sweet topping, such as syrup, jam or honey."

It seem to be more quebecer than french. In France we have somthing similar that we call "pain perdu" (lost bread), but we don't eat that often.
In Quebec it is very popular, they almost eat it every moorning with marple syrup.

The Norwegian cheese you don't want to get intimate with:
Gammalost = old cheese!
Looks like something rotten and brown that has been lying in your cupboard for years... Tastes only a little bit better....

Best Swiss cheese name: Sura chäs = sour cheese!