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Americans spend almost $4 billion every year on a treat we know as potato chips. A popular story says they were invented in 1853 in Saratoga Springs, New York. Many wealthy people vacationed at the Carey Moon Lake House in Saratoga Springs and a Native American chef named George Crum worked in the kitchen there.
. . Choice#1: One day a customer kept sending his plate of fried potatoes back to the kitchen asking that they be sliced thinner and fried longer. George Crum had a bad temper, and he decided to get even with the complaining diner. He sliced the potatoes very thin, fried them till they were curly crisps, and salted them. Certain the guest would hate them, he had the potatoes delivered to the table. To everyone’s surprise, the patron was delighted and asked for more.
Choice #2: One night George Crum was working at the diner. There were 20 people there who wanted potatoes. Since the economy was bad, the diner only had a five pound sack of potatoes to feed the whole diner of 20 people. The owner’s policy was to have one potato for each diner who wanted potatoes. The diner only served fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, and baked potatoes. He couldn’t feed all the people with only one sack of potatoes. George wanted the customers to get their orders. So George sliced the potatoes very thin, fried them a little bit, and put a little pinch of salt on them. He used the one sack of potatoes he had! He was so glad because his boss was yelling at him to use only the five pound sack of potatoes, without having anyone not get some potatoes. When George served the potatoes everyone loved them! That’s how the potato chips were made. They were made by mistake! .
Word spread quickly of these crispy potatoes and until the early 1900s they were known as Saratoga chips after the town where they were introduced. Today over 816 million pounds of potato chips are consumed in the United States each year. A total 3.468 billion pounds of potatoes end up as America’s number one snack food: potato chips
