Randmness

This morning my mom and I were talking about the Random things that I could write about on this blog. Together we came up with a pretty good starter list of things to write about but one item on the list caught my attention. It occurred to both of us that we didn’t know anything about potato chips, well other than the fact that we love to eat them and that they come from potatoes. So I did some research an interesting story and some useless facts about them.

In 1853 a Native American by the name of George Crum started work as a chef at resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. One evening a dinner guest sent his plate of fried potatoes back to the kitchen because he thought that they were too thick and soggy. Apparently George fried the potatoes up a little more and sent them back, only to have them returned to the kitchen. George tried frying the potatoes more and more but they kept getting returned to the kitchen by the dinner guest. Finally George got fed up and sliced a potato real thin so the dinner guest would have a hart time trying to eat it with his fork. Because the potato slices were so thin he had to stir fry them instead of the usual pan frying. George sent the plate out but was surprised when the dinner guest loved the new chips that he created. They became a regular item on the menu and were named ‘Saratoga Chips.’ The potato chip became very popular throughout New England and in 1895 a company in Ohio began mass producing potato chips that could be purchased in stores.

Here are some useless facts about potato chips:

1. It takes 4 pounds of potatoes to create 1 pound of potato chips.

2. Before the 1920s each potato had to be hand peeled before getting sliced.

3. A company in England produced Hedgehog flavored chips.

4. Before wax bags were invented in the 1930s potato chips were stored in either a large barrel or glass display cases.

5. Colombia and Japan both enjoy mayonnaise flavored chips.

So there you have it. I had no idea that Potato Chips were started by an angry chef trying to annoy a dinner guest.

Tags: Food, How did they figure that out?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Food, How did they figure that out?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.