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History[edit]
The earliest known recipe for potato chips is in William Kitchiner's cookbook The Cook's Oracle, first published in 1817, which was a bestseller in England and the United States. The 1822 edition's version of recipe 104 is called "Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings" and reads "peel large potatoes, slice them about a quarter of an inch thick, or cut them in shavings round and round, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping".[2][3]
Early recipes for potato chips in the United States are found in Mary Randolph's Virginia House-Wife (1824),[4] and in N.K.M. Lee's Cook's Own Book (1832),[5] both of which explicitly cite Kitchiner.[6]
Nonetheless, a legend associates the creation of potato chips with Saratoga Springs, New York, decades later.[7] By the late 19th century, a popular version of the story attributed the dish to George Crum, a half African, half Native American cook[8][9] at Moon's Lake House, who was trying to appease an unhappy customer on August 24, 1853.[10] The customer kept sending his French-fried potatoes back, complaining that they were too thick.[11] Frustrated, he sliced the potatoes razor thin, fried them until crisp and seasoned them with extra salt. To Crum's surprise, the customer loved them.[12] They soon became called "Saratoga Chips",[13] a name that persisted into at least the mid-20th century. A version of this story popularized in a 1973 national advertising campaign by St. Regis Paper Company, which manufactured packaging for chips, said that Crum's customer was Cornelius Vanderbilt.[8] Crum was renowned as a chef and by 1860 owned his own lakeside restaurant, Crum's House.[8]
In the 20th century, potato chips spread beyond chef-cooked restaurant fare and began to be mass-produced for home consumption. The Dayton, Ohio-based Mike-sell's Potato Chip Company, founded in 1910, identifies as the "oldest potato chip company in the United States".[14][15][16] New England-based Tri-Sum Potato Chips, originally founded in 1908 as the Leominster Potato Chip Company, in Leominster, Massachusetts claim to be America's first potato chip manufacturer.[17][18] Chips sold in markets were usually sold in tins or scooped out of storefront glass bins and delivered by horse and wagon. The early potato chip bag was wax paper with the ends ironed or stapled together. At first, potato chips were packaged in barrels or tins, which left chips at the bottom stale and crumbled.
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The Potato Chip Blues
woke up this mornin'
bout the break a day
had a cravin' for potato chips
had to be Lays
so I stuck out my thumb
had to hitch hike
had to have some potato chips
befo' night
I got them potato chip blues
what can I say
can't be no Cheetos
has to be Lays
finally I got me a bag
smiles from ear to ear
a big bag of Lays
and an ice cold beer
I got them potato chip blues
what can I say
today's chips
