Where did the potato chip come from?

from how Stuff works dot com Where smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question where did the potato chip come from? Fried potatoes were first introduced in the United States by Thomas Jefferson in the late eighteenth century. Jefferson had come across them while he was in Paris. During the early nineteenth century, fried potatoes steadily gained in popularity. They became a common menu item at restaurants across the country.

In eighteen fifty three, a diner at Moon's Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York, ordered fried potatoes with his meal. The diner, rumored to have been Cornelius Vanderbilt, sent the potatoes back to the kitchen with a complaint that they were not crispy enough. The chef at the restaurant, George Crumb, apparently was furious with the criticism, so he sliced the potatoes paper thin, salted them heavily, and refried them ironically instead of ruining the meal for the diner. Crumb's creation

was a hit. The owner of Moon's Lake House, realizing that the chips were delicious, made them a menu item. Eventually, Crumb opened his own restaurant that featured the thin fried potatoes as well. He called them Saratoga chips. As word of the chips got out, other restaurants began to serve them. It wasn't long before potato chips were a staple at restaurants across the country. William Tapadon of Cleveland, Ohio, was credited with taking the potato chip out of the restaurant

and into the grocery store. In eighteen ninety five. He began selling potato chips to local grocers and turned his barn into the world's first potato chip factory. During the early nineteen hundred, several companies built large factories for the mass production of potato chips, and the nineteen twenties saw the birth of three companies that defined the potato chip

industry today. First, Earl Wise Senior had too many potatoes at his Wise delicatess In company, which was founded in Berwick, Pennsylvania, in nineteen twenty one, he decided to make potato chips out of the extras and sell them in brown paper bags through the delicatess In as Wise Potato chips. Herman Ley began selling potato chips in the South, and in nineteen thirty two he founded Lays in Nashville, Tennessee, as

a distributor for the chip factory in Atlanta, Georgia. In nineteen thirty eight, Lay purchased the chip factory and start selling Lays brand potato chips. In nine Bill and Sally Utts founded UTS Quality Foods in Hanover, Pennsylvania. Uts marketed and sold chips made by his wife Sally called Hanover Home brand potato chips. Today, potato chips are America's favorite snack food and come in an amazing number of varieties. Modern factories mass produced the chips using continuous fryers or

flash frying. Some chips are made from reconstituted potato flakes instead of raw potato. Slices. Now, the question is are potato chips a good idea or a bad idea? If you think about it, what you've got is a package that contains fat, which isn't great for you, high glycemic carbohydrates which aren't great for you, and a lot of salt, which isn't great for you either. Maybe this wasn't the

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