Wenn Sie dies vor einem Restaurant sehen, wissen Sie, dass ihre Pommes Waren sind

The “fry-man” is based on a real figure, Pieter Ceustermans. Much mystery surrounds
the precise origin, but we know that Pieter once was the proud owner of a “frituur” – the name for the traditional Belgian fry stand – in the centre of Brussels.

Pieter was known for his excellent fries and his ambition to become the
best frituur-owner in the world. He dedicated his life to the art of
fries. He read every book about frying he could lay his hands on,
researched methods and examples from other frituurs, and experimented
with hundreds of variations of potatoes. But his exploits became
stranger and stranger. At night, he dreamt of fries. He decorated his
home with photos, paintings, and little sculptures of fries. He only
allowed his dog to eat fries, which caused the poor thing to die of
malnourishment. He started murmuring to himself and sang little songs
about frying that he made up himself.

Eventually, he started bathing in oil and sprinking himself with salt,
wore a “puntzak” (the traditional pointy paper bag for fries) as a hat,
and fried anything he could lay his hands on in oil. The final straw
came when he fried his neighbour’s cat as a “culinary experiment”. His
neighbours finally had enough, and they banished him to “Het
Zoniënwoud”, the ancient woods near Brussels. For a long time, that was
the last anyone saw of Pieter Ceustermans. But after many years, rumors
started to pop up. Sightings were reported of a strange figure, half
man, half fry-bag, wandering the streets of Brussels at night. Supplies
from frituurs started to disappear and potato farmers found parts of
their harvest missing. People started whispering that this mysterious
figure was actually Pieter Ceustermans, transformed by his obsessions
with frying and the old magic that still lingers in the Woods. But no
one knows for sure.

To this day, people around Brussels still tell stories about him. They
tell of Pieter Ceustermans the fry-man, lurking in the streets of
Brussels at night, looking for things to fry in his secret lair. They
speak of trails of salt that are sometimes found in homes after a cat or
dog goes missing, and the smell of fried oil that lingers after a dark
figure slips away in an alley.

The statues are a tribute to this legend, and have become a part of Belgian folklore.