How Potato Chips are made
Potato Chip Background Potato chips are thin slices of potato, fried quickly in oil and then salted. According to snack food folklore, the potato chip was invented in 1853 by a chef named George Crum at a restaurant called Moon's Lake House in Saratoga Spring, New York. Angered when a customer, some sources say it was none other than Cornelius Vanderbilt, returned his french fried potatoes to the kitchen for being too thick, Crum sarcastically shaved them paper thin and sent the plate back out. The customer, whoever he was, and others around him, loved the thin potatoes. Crum soon opened his own restaurant across the lake and his policy of not taking reservations did not keep the customers from standing in line to taste his potato chips. The popularity of potato chips quickly spread across the country, particularly in speakeasies, spawning a flurry of home-based companies. Van de Camp's Saratoga Chips opened in Los Angeles on January 6, 1915. In 1921, Earl Wise, a g...