Conservative nostalgia, concretely for fries themselves and abstractly for a fake, idealised version of the past.

This is so weird to me like you can literally just go out and have fries today and they're great? They're so much better now because there's so many different places that literally just sell fries with various sauces so they have to be in an arms-race for the most delicious kind of sauce and the best fries. Plus everyone now offers sweet potato fries if you're bored of the normal ones. There's never been a better time for fries. When I was a kid fries fucking sucked man, and they had only ketchup.