French fries (American English), chips (British English), fries, finger chips, or French-fried potatoes are batonnet or allumette cut potato that are normally deep-fried but could also be cooked in an oven. In the United States and most of Canada, the term fries refers to any fried elongated pieces of potatoes, while in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand, allumette cut fried potatoes are sometimes called shoestring fries to distinguish them from the batonnet cut chips.