On July 24, 1853 (legend points to that summer week), at a fancy resort called Moon's Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York, a frustrated chef named George Crum was working the kitchen. A picky customer had sent back his French-fried potatoes - too thick, too soft, the customer complained. Crum, who was African American and Native American, decided to teach this fussy diner a lesson. He sliced potatoes paper-thin, fried them until they were crispy enough to shatter, and salted them heavily. He sent them out expecting an angry shout.
Instead, the customer loved them. So did everyone else in the dining room. Word spread, and soon Moon's Lake House was famous for its 'Saratoga Chips.' Crum eventually opened his own restaurant nearby where every table got a basket of chips before the meal. Historians today aren't 100 percent sure Crum invented the chip alone - his sister Catherine Wicks may have helped, and similar fried slices appeared in older cookbooks - but the Saratoga story is the legend that stuck.
For decades, potato chips were a fancy restaurant treat, eaten with a fork. Then in the 1920s, a businessman named Herman Lay started driving his Ford Model A across the American South selling chips out of the trunk, and Lay's became one of the biggest snack brands in the world. Today, people around the planet eat billions of bags of chips every year in flavors from ketchup (Canada) to seaweed (Japan) to roast lamb with mint (Britain). One chef's grumpy mood turned into one of the most beloved snacks on Earth. CRUNCH!
