snack bar
Potato Chips
Has anyone ever asked you to do something over again because they didn’t like the way you did it the first time? Maybe it was your mom, maybe it was a teacher…
Well, the next time this happens don’t get annoyed, just think of George Crum, and hope that you can have as much success with a do-over as he did!
Back in 1853, Crum, a Native American, was a chef at a resort called the Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York. One night he had a very picky customer who didn’t like the way Crum’s french fries were cooked, he thought they were too soggy. So this customer sent them back to the kitchen not once, but twice, so they could be cut thinner.
Crum became so frustrated with the customer that he sliced the potatoes so thin that you wouldn’t be able to eat them with a fork. Surprise, surprise — the customer (rumoured to be a very rich and powerful man) loved the dish — and what we know today as the potato chip was born.
A few years later Crum opened his very own restaurant where the potato chip was the trademark menu item. In fact, there was a bowl on each table even before the patrons arrived.
It wasn’t until the 1950s that a man named Joe Murphy, who owned an Irish potato chip company called Tayto, invented seasoned potato chips. Until that point, the only seasoning was salt, and it came in a separate bag that had to be sprinkled onto the chips. After some testing, Murphy came up with the first two types of flavoured chips — Cheese and Onion and Salt and Vinegar.
Today chip flavours differ greatly depending on where you are in the world. Here in Canada dill pickle, ketchup and bacon flavours are popular, while in the U.K. they enjoy marmite and prawn seasoning and Germany sticks almost entirely to paprika-flavoured chips.
Chip bits:
• What we call chips here in North America are commonly referred to as crisps in
the U.K.
• Potatoes, from which chips are made, are the second most popular food on the
planet, after rice.
• Today, chips are packaged in bags pumped up with nitrogen gas in order to make
them last longer and keep them from getting crushed.
• Officially called a “crisp” rather than “chip” in North America, some brands, like
Pringles, are not made from slices of potatoes, but potato dough or paste that has
been pressed into a potato-chip shape.
• Chips are usually made with special “chipping potatoes,” rather than the kind we
use to make baked potatoes or french fries.