Regardless of age, potato chips have become one of the most favourite snacks for many people around the world. In the United States (US), potato chips consumption is estimated to be more than one billion kilograms a year.
The Americans are so fond of potato chips that March 14, is considered the ‘National Day for Potato Chips’ in the US. However, one would be surprised to know that potato chips were first manufactured by accident about 150 years ago.
Complained
On 24 August 24, 1853, a chef working at ‘Moon’s Lake House’ restaurant in the city of New York prepared some fried potatoes for a customer. However, the customer complained that the fried potato the chef had prepared that day was too fat. He further complained that the chef had not added enough salt into the dish. Then, in an attempt to please the customer, the chef prepared another dish. The deep-fried, well-salted, finely chopped potato slices presented to him soon became known as the ‘Saratoga Potato Slices’.
Famous for his fried potato slices, the chef named George Crum started his own restaurant, Crum’s House, in the 1860s. In the restaurant, he served a small basket filled with fried potato slices, along with every bowl of food, which no doubt contributed to Crum’s growing customer base day by day.
Standard menu
However, he had not attempted to obtain a patent for his invention in the 19th century, as the law at that time did not permit blacks to obtain patents. By the 1870s, however, the potato slices he had created had become a standard menu item in train restaurants, street food carts, and high-end hotels in the US.
Although the most popular story about the invention of potato chips today is the ‘Saratoga potato slices’, there is another story that potato chips originated in the United Kingdom (UK).
This is due to the revised edition of The Cook’s Oracle, a cookbook written by Dr. William Kitchener, which was first published in 1817. In the book, recipe 104 shows how to prepare ‘fried sliced potatoes’. According to it, ‘fried potato slices’ are round-shaped potato slices about an inch thick that need to be dried and then fried.
‘Virginia House-Wife’, later published by Mary Randolph in 1824, and N. K. M. Lee’s 1832 American cookbook, ‘Cook’s Own Book’, included Dr. William’s recipe for fried sliced potatoes. The British therefore believe that Crum may have used these recipes to create ‘Saratoga Potato Slices’.
It was in the 20th century that the roasted potato industry became a hugely lucrative business. The ‘Mikesell’s Potato Chip Company’ business, started by Daniel Mikesell in Dayton, Ohio in 1910, is considered to be the oldest fried potato chip company in the US.
First mooted
But the idea of flavoured fried potato chips was first mooted in 1920 when Frank Smith founded the London-based ‘The Smith’s Snack Food Company’ and sold salted potato chips.
In 1954, Joe Spud Murphy, the owner of Tayto Crisps, an Irish company that made fried potatoes, tried to find a way to season the fried potatoes with spices during the manufacturing process.
Although unsuccessful on several occasions, Tayto Crisps eventually launched ‘Cheese and Onion’ and ‘Salt and Vinegar’ flavoured potato chips, further increasing the demand for potato chips.