With something as historical and legendary as the potato chip,
of course there are many laying claim to its birth…..
and I say it shall stay a mystery… but here are some commonly
told versions of where this such versatile staple found its
way into our desire to snack.
One day in 1885 at Moon's Lake house restaurant, the shipping
and railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt was dining and did not
like what he was served. Upon returning the fried potatoes to
the kitchen, they were met by a George Crum (also known as George
Speck), who became filled with spite. In his anger, he sliced
the potatoes so thin and then fried them crisp to get under
the dinners skin. But instead of the reaction he expected, he
got a huge response and the potato chip was born!
Although, Crum became what would be one of the first celebrity
chefs known for his Book Trout, Lake Bass, Woodcock and Partridge
dishes, with the NY times calling him 'the best cook in the
country'. There was no mention of the potato chip at all in
any of the writings.
Three years later, an obituary for Catherine Adkins Wicks, age
103, maintained that she, in fact, “was said to be the
originator of the potato chip.” Wicks, who was Crum’s
sister, worked alongside him in the kitchen and was familiarly
known as Aunt Kate or Aunt Katie. In one variation of the disgruntled
diner story, it is she, not Crum, who carved potatoes paper-thin
in a moment of pique. In another telling, she accidentally dropped
a thin slice into a boiling pot of fat while peeling potatoes
retrieved it with a fork, and had her eureka moment.
Then, in Hiram S. Thomas 1907 obituaries, was widely credited
as “the inventor of Saratoga chips.” A prominent
Black hotelier referred to in one obituary as “next to
Booker T. Washington" as one of the most well-known African
Americans in the region, Thomas ran Moon’s Lake House
for about a decade. However, that was some time after the Crum
and/or Wicks discovery theory—and a good decade after
the chips had become commercially available far beyond Saratoga
Chips. But even with this there at least five different men
and women have been credited as its creator during this time.
A more recent theory, is that the Lake House’s potato
chips actually precede even Crum and Wicks. Another New York
Herald article, this one from 1849, notes the “fame of
‘Eliza, the cook,’ for crisping potatoes,”
adding that “scores of people visit the lake and carry
away specimens of the vegetable, as prepared by her, as curiosities.”
Regrettably, Eliza’s last name and anything else about
her seems lost to history.
What’s more, food historians suggest the chip probably
wasn’t invented in Saratoga—and possibly not in
the U.S. at all
An alternative version is from Food historians that suggest
it goes back to at least 1817 when an English doctor named
William Kitchiner came out with the first edition of his pioneering
cookbook, The Cook’s Oracle, published in both British
and American editions. One recipe, “potatoes fried in
slices,” sounds remarkably like today’s potato
chip. Later revisions referred to the dish as “potatoes
fried in slices or shavings.”
An 1825 British book about French cookery calls them "Pommes
de Terre frites" (second recipe) and calls for thin slices
of potato fried in "clarified butter or goose dripping",
drained and sprinkled with salt. Early recipes for potato
chips in the US are found in Mary Randolph's Virginia House-Wife
(1824) and in N.K.M. Lee's Cook's Own Book (1832), both of
which explicitly cite Kitchiner.
In the USA, once established, Saratoga chips were a gourmet
delicacy served at fine hotels and restaurants. Diners at
the Cadillac Hotel in Detroit could enjoy them with chicken
salad in aspic. Passengers aboard the luxury liner R.M.S.
Berengaria nibbled theirs alongside roast pheasant. Wealthy
families whose cooks had mastered the art of chip-making could
buy a sterling silver Saratoga chip server at Tiffany for
dishing them out with elegance.
Usually handmade and often served in wax paper bags, freshly
fried snack chips tended to have a short shelf life, making
them a hyperlocal, highly fragmented business proposition.
It wasn’t until the 1930s that two companies, Lay’s
and Fritos—the latter of which made their chips from
corn, not potato—began their rise to becoming national
brands mass-producing and distributing the popular snack foods.
In time, chips became a universal treat, with potato chips
alone becoming a $10 billion industry in the U.S.
So after my own research to reveal the above information,
I have come to the conclusion that there are so many who wish
they knew where this worshipped snack came from, and why it
was created, be it by accident, spite or just creativity,
no one seems to have a firm foot print on the chips birth,
but we are all so thankful for it to garnish our grocery shelves
and welcome its growth and so, we endeavor to taste as many
unique flavors and variations in our salute to its greatness.
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