POTATO CHIPS, AS WE KNOW THEM, WERE INVENTED BY MISTAKE – NPCK (2024)

FAQs

POTATO CHIPS, AS WE KNOW THEM, WERE INVENTED BY MISTAKE – NPCK? ›

George Crum, who was a chef at the Moon's Lake House in New York, accidentally invented potato chips in 1853. After a guest at the restaurant kept returning potato fries, claiming that they weren't crisp enough, Crum sliced the potatoes thinly, fried them in hot oil and added salt.

Potato chips were an accidental hit

At Moon Lake Lodge, one dinner guest found chef Crum's French fries too thick for his liking and rejected the order. Crum cut and fried a thinner batch, but these, too, met with disapproval.

Photo of George Crum's (a.k.a. “Speck”) restaurant on Saratoga Lake. Crum is credited with “inventing” the potato chip while a cook at Moon's Lake House on Saratoga Lake in 1853.

The potato chip was invented in Saratoga Lake, NY. Its inventor was George Speck—the son of an African American father and Native American mother. Later he professionally adopted the last name Crum. He was a gifted, although surly, cook working as the chef of the Moon Lake Lodge Resort in 1853.

A worldwide favorite snack is the potato chip, which was invented by an African American chef, named George Crum, born George Speck on 1824. He was born in Saratoga Lake, New York. He was the son of an African American father, who was a jockey, and Native American mother, of the Huron Tribe.

Fast Facts: George Crum

Known For: Inventing potato chips after slicing an order of french fries extra thin to spite a demanding customer.

Crum married Elizabeth Jarrett in 1853 and the couple had three sons, John, Gilbert, and William, and a daughter, Anne. They divorced in 1857. He met his second wife, Hester Esther Bennett, who was a regular customer at Crum's Place.

On one occasion, he called a waiter over to ask "Crum", "How long before we shall eat?" Rather than take offense, Speck decided to embrace the nickname, figuring that, "A crumb is bigger than a speck." By 1860, Speck had opened his own restaurant, called Crum's, on Storey Hill in nearby Malta, New York.

Potato chips and Tostitos were sealed and stored, then tasted after five weeks to see which tasted freshest. And the results? "The chips from the Ziploc and the Glad bags were a bit stale. But the clip and the Quick Seals kept the food tasting just as fresh as if it were from a newly opened bag," said Freeman.

Does the potato hack really work? ›

The truth is that most diets don't work in the long run.

So while a short-term potato hack is potentially a useful tool to kick-start some dietary habit changes or to lose some weight fast for an event, a long-term potato diet is too restrictive to work for most people.

"You have 100kg of potatoes, which are 99% water by weight. You let them dehydrate until they're 98% water. How much do they weigh now?" the answer is 50 Kg.

The federal government actually stepped in to determine whether Pringles really were potato chips. In 1975, the FDA decided that the company could call Pringles “chips” only if they called out the dried potato ingredient. Instead, Pringles decided to use the term “crisps.”

George Crum, a famed chef of Native American and Black heritage, took umbrage at the request and, in an “I'll show him!” mood, sliced some potatoes as thin as he could, fried them to a crisp and served them to Vanderbilt. To Crum's surprise, Vanderbilt loved them, and the potato chip was born.

Crum finally made fries that were too thin to eat with a fork, hoping to annoy the extremely fussy customer. The customer, surprisingly enough, was happy – and potato chips were invented! Crum's chips were originally called Saratoga Chips and potato crunches.

The customer kept sending back his French-fried potatoes, complaining that they were too thick, too "soggy", or not salted enough. Frustrated, Crum sliced several potatoes extremely thin, fried them to a crisp, and seasoned them with extra salt. To his surprise, the customer loved them.

Legend says Crum became agitated when a customer sent his French-fried potatoes back to the kitchen, complaining that they were cut too thickly. Crum reacted by slicing the potatoes as thin as he possibly could, frying them in grease, and sending the crunchy brown chips back out on the guest's plate that way.

BAND-AID^® Brand adhesive bandages officially went on the market in 1921, and for the first few years, they were made by hand and packaged exactly as Dickson had invented them—a roll you had to trim with scissors.