How the Potato Chip was Invented

A man complaining about his fried potatoes being too soggy and too thick kept sending them back to the chef. The chef, at Moon's Lake House, an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, was becoming upset at the dinner guest for rejecting his fried potatoes. The chef decided to get back at the complaining customer by slicing the potatoes so thin and frying them so crisp that they couldn't be eaten by a fork. He had to stir fry his extra thin potatoes because they could not be cooked as normal in the frying pan. He then heavily salted them. The plan didn't go as expected with the customer being riled, instead the customer was delighted. He loved the new potatoes. With that event, on August 24, 1853 the Saratoga Chip, later called Potato Chip was born.

The chef and inventor of the potato chip was George Crum, a 31 year old American, who was the son of an African American father and Native American mother. One version of this story identifies Cornelius Vanderbilt as the customer who wanted the thinner chips. The guest was so ecstatic over the browned, paper-thin potatoes, that other diners began requesting Crum's potato chips. They quickly became a regular item on the Moon's Lake House menu, and were called Saratoga Chips.

In 1860, Crum opened his own restaurant in a building on Malta Avenue near Saratoga Lake, which featured the thin, fried potatoes. He called them Saratoga Chips. He placed a bowl of the Saratoga Chips on every table in his restaurant. Within a few years his restaurant was catering to wealthy clients including William Vanderbilt, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Henry Hilton. As word of the chips got out, other restaurants began to serve them. It wasn't long before potato chips were a staple at restaurants across the country.

William Tappendon of Cleveland, Ohio, is credited with taking the potato chip out of the restaurant and into the grocery store. In 1895, he began selling potato chips to local grocers. At first he began making the chips in his kitchen and delivering to neighborhood stores but later converted a barn in the rear of his house into one of the first potato chip factories in the country. During the early 1900s, several companies built large factories for the mass production of potato chips.

Today, potato chips are America's favorite snack food and come in many different varieties and flavors. Modern factories mass produce the chips using continuous fryers or flash frying. Some chips are made from reconstituted potato flakes instead of raw potato slices.

Sources:
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/menus/question579.htm
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/potatochips.htm