George Crum and the Potato Chip

George Crum was born in 1822 in Saratoga Lake, New York to a Native American mother and African American father, and died in 1914 in Saratoga Lake, New York at the age of 92. In the summer of 1853 Crum unintentionally invented the potato chip. The story goes that he was employed as a chef at a high class resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. One dinner guest found that Crum's French fries were too thick and rejected the order. Crum was insulted by this and decided to pester the guest by reproducing fries too thick and crisp to skewer with a fork. French Fries back in those times were typically eaten with forks so the fact that the guest would have to eat with his hands was an insult. The plan backfired on Crum though, the guest loved the browned paper-thin potatoes and soon other diners began requesting these potato chips.

In 1860 George opened his own restaurant in a building on Malta Avenue near Saratoga Lake, and within a few years was catering to wealthy clients including William Vanderbilt, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Henry Hilton. His restaurant closed around 1890 and he died in 1914 at the age of 92. The potato chips were originally called Saratoga chips due to them being invented in Saratoga Lake, New York.

In 1932, Herman Lay founded Lay's in Nashville, Tenn., which distributed potato chips from a factory in Atlanta, Ga. Herman Lay, a traveling salesman in the South, helped popularize the food from Atlanta to Tennessee. Lay peddled potato chips to Southern grocers out of the trunk of his car, building a business and a name that would become synonymous with the thin, salty snack. Lay's potato chips became the first successfully marketed
national brand.

Potato chips have become America's favorite snack. U.S. retail sales of potato chip are over $6 billion a year. In 2003 the U.S. potato chip industry employed more than 65,000 people

Source of Information: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/crum.htm