I would like to discuss a topic that is debated passionately in my life, either with friends or with my wife: the potato, specifically the french fry.

I’ve cooked almost my entire life, and during this time, I have learned that I have a love/hate relationship with potatoes. Not all french fries are delicious, and I’m going to break down some of the reasons why. I know this will start a fun debate, which I’m okay with.

Overall, it’s complicated. Most fries are just bad. But I believe that it’s the wizard, not the wand, that is the problem. They are fried too long, not long enough, oil is too cold or too hot, over or under seasoned. There are so many factors to this, it makes my head spin. I ran a restaurant for a long time that spent hours focusing on the pursuit of the best french fry and dedicated more time than was probably necessary on trying to achieve it.

Picking potatoes
First, we need to break down how the french fry is made — the frozen fry comes later. There are many different styles to talk about, and you have to start with the type of potato — Idaho, Yukon Gold, Kennebec (a variety of the white potato), sweet potato, and, the wrong choice at any time, the red potato.

The fry is really only good when the potato is super starchy and low in sugar like the Idaho, the Kennebec, and sometimes the Yukon Gold. Sorry, sweet potato and red potato, you’re gone. I’m not going to apologize about these things because they are my beliefs based on my experiences. (A friendly difference in opinion is part of what makes our world amazing.)

When it comes to the cut of the french fry, do you want super thin, medium, thick, or something like a steak fry? For me, it’s a 3/8-inch Kennebec.

Frying secrets
The potatoes are washed, put through a french fry cutter, into water, where you want to wash some of the starch from them.

The next step is to fry them in a 300-degree fryer for 3 to 5 minutes, then remove from the oil and either refrigerate or freeze overnight to help dry them out. Fry them a second time in a 375- to 400-degree fryer for 3 to 5 minutes or until crispy.

When you remove them from the fryer, shake the excess oil from them, drop them in a bowl, and lightly toss them with a little kosher salt. Please refrain from putting truffle oil on them right now because you went through a lot of hard work to make them and don’t want to ruin them.

A chef's caveat
I did this for 10 years, tasting french fries every day to measure consistency, and then it happened: I ordered some wings and fries to take home for dinner. It took me an extra minute to leave the restaurant, and when I got home and my wife and I sat down to dinner, the fries were soggy. Lindsey said something that shocked me.

She said, “These fries are great; they should always be like this.” I almost choked and said, “Wait, after years of trying to perfect the fry, you want me to go in and ask the cooks to make them like this?” And the answer was yes.

It made me realize that what I consider the perfect fry was only perfect for me, but not everyone agreed. Enjoy the truffle oil, fry yourself a sweet potato, live your life like you should!

Moving on ...

Frozen fries
Let’s talk about frozen fries. Are they bad? Absolutely not — they are a modern marvel that we should be in awe of because they give restaurants consistency and help keep labor models in check. If I had to do it all over again, I would absolutely buy frozen fries.

Are all frozen fries perfect? That depends on what you like — the shoestring, thick steak cut, the curly, crinkle, the tot.

I love the thin fry that is about a quarter inch, but I’ll pass on the super small matchstick fries or the big, thick puffy fries. My argument is that based on a crisp exterior-to-interior potato ratio, the tater tot might be the best crunch.

Coated fries
Let’s finish up by talking about innovation. In the french fry world, it’s known as the coated fry. This is a coating of proprietary ingredients consisting sometimes of rice flour that make the fry stay crispy longer. The thin coating that you can’t really tell is there, which keeps the fry crispy, is a much better option than the thick, seasoned coating, unless you are talking about a curly fry, which I’m cool with but only then.

The waffle fry, sweet potato fry, the fries tossed in garlic and herbs, and steak fries are a no-go for me, except within certain circumstances like the potato wedges at Houston's acclaimed Bludorn. Crinkle fries are usually pretty tasty but not always. A soggy crinkle is the worst, but folks like Shake Shack and, surprisingly, Halal Guys (even delivered!) are really good, always seasoned right and crispy.

Bottom line: Enjoy your fries that you love the most. Maybe the ones you don’t like (sweet potato or truffle) are someone else’s favorite.

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Houston-based chef Chris Shepherd won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2014 and is co-founder of the Southern Smoke Foundation, which has distributed more than $11 million to hospitality workers in crisis through its Emergency Relief Fund.