As has been mentioned in the thread, just because it's not been frozen doesn't really mean anything. Frozen peas are just as good as fresh after all.

The freezing of fries can and does make them better, keeps the inside fluffier after frying as the ice crystals blow up inside.

Even Heston Blumenthal freezes them [0]

[0] http://www.redonline.co.uk/food/recipes/heston-blumenthal-tr...

> Frozen peas are just as good as fresh after all.

In what universe? Fresh peas are significantly better, and I'm not even sure that's an opinion as much as fact.

Edit: If HN had controversial markers, this comment would have one. I've watched the points on it go up and down, negative and positive, for the last hour.

Apparently frozen peas is quite controversial.

I never realised it was controversial. In every conversation I've had with chefs, cookery programmes watched, experience with both fresh and frozen, never once have I come to the conclusion fresh was better.

Added to the fact they last much longer, I can't see any reason to buy fresh (we're talking petit pois style, rather than runner bean style).

To me at least (and my wife) previously frozen peas taste floury.

You’re over cooking them. They need just 1 minute in boiling salt water from frozen, not more than that.

In England peas are taken from field to frozen in less than 4 hours. It's a remarkable process, and it means people buying frozen peas are getting a very good product.

Fresh peas, on the other hand, cover a range from "I picked these myself just now" to "who knows when these came off the plant".

If you eat them raw, they're obviously different, but after cooking, they're virtually indistinguishable.

Remove flour from the recipy.

Modern blast chillers make amazing frozen products. It's a pretty impressive thing: a significant amount of the quality of the product is stored in the frozen product. It depends tremendously on how fast you chill, how thoroughly, etc.

I think the difference here isn't fresh vs frozen, but rather unprocessed vs processed.

Heston freezes solid whole pieces of potato, In-n-Out likely uses whole pieces of potato, seasoned. McDonald's likely mashes everything up, blends it all with preservatives and flavour enhancers and forms it into fry-shaped pieces.

McDonalds uses a potato cannon to make fries - they can mass produce them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfZLWEAiixo

They are also dipped in dextrose for colour and Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate to reduce the graying from freezing them.

https://www.cnet.com/news/former-mythbuster-goes-on-mcdonald...

Also depends on the location, over here apparently they're a lot more pure than in the US [0] to the extent that they're really not bad. They also claim they're also actually cut rather than shaped.

I think we generally get a better quality product from McD's, I did enjoy my In-n-Out experience when in Cali, but I can imagine it's a world different if the baseline fast food is poorer.

[0] http://www.cityam.com/207843/fry-hard-it-turns-out-mcdonalds...

Indeed, I am speculating about US McD's, not about UK. The quality here looks much better.

McD does not make their own french fries. There is a potato company, in Idaho I think, that puts it all together and freezes it for shipping.

The issue isn't so much that bagged fries are frozen, it's that they are often watered down and mixed with oil.