(Just
don't eat chips every day!)
I
didn't know that potato chips started as a joke. A kind of a huffy
“I'm mad at you” joke!
The
year was 1853. Chef George Crum was cooking in a restaurant in
Saratoga Springs, New York, and a customer kept sending back the
fried potatoes (what we now call French fries) because they were too
thick and soggy. Crum was annoyed and decided to show the customer potatoes that were anything but thick and soggy. He sliced a potato paper-thin, and then he fried these thin slices in oil. He fried them so hard, they became so crisp, he knew that the potato slices would shatter when the customer tried to pierce them with a fork. To add to the insult, Crum over-salted the potatoes.
Then
he sent what he considered inedible food to the customer.
You
probably guessed that, instead of hating these thin, crisp, salty
potatoes, the customer LOVED them (and didn't mind at all having to
use his fingers instead of a fork). The new potato “dish” was an
instant success, and soon appeared on the Saratoga Lodge menu. The
restaurant became famous for the chips, and soon it was shipping
“Saratoga Chips” all over New England. Eventually people could
buy them in grocery stores.
Now
potato chips are one of the most popular snack foods in the world.
Flavors
Galore!
In
England what Americans call French fries are called “chips,” so
what Americans call potato chips are called “crisps.”
And
some companies offer some pretty crazy flavors on their crisps! Can
you imagine Lincolnshire sausage and brown sauce crisps? How about
Birmingham chicken balti crisps? There are crisps flavored like
chargrilled steak, cheeseburger, steak and onion, smoky bacon, roast
chicken, prawn (shrimp) cocktail, pickled onion, tomato ketchup, BBQ
rib, Worcester sauce, cheddar cheese and bacon, and sweet chili
chicken. (These flavors are offered by Walkers brand crisps.)
I
guess it's a real meat-and-potatoes country!
American
chips are offered in lots of flavors, too, although with fewer meat
references: there are Cajun herb and spice, chile lemon, chipotle
ranch, dill pickle, garden tomato, sweet southern heat barbecue,
tangy Carolina, Parmesan and Tuscan herb, southwestern ranch, creamy
Mediterranean herb, spice rubbed BBQ, Maui onion, jalapeno, mesquite
BBQ, and spicy cayenne and cheese. (These flavors are offered by
Lay's brand chips.)
Pringles
offers fewer flavor choices but claims that their flavors are Xtreme,
and have named them accordingly: Blastin' Buffalo Wing, Screamin'
Dill Pickle, Ragin' Cajun, and Sizzlin' Sweet BBQ. This brand also
sells pizza-flavored chips.
One
of my favorite stores, Trader Joe's, offers milk chocolate covered
potato chips!
I
personally like salt and vinegar chips, sour cream and cheddar chips,
and sour cream and onion chips. Oh, and just good old normal potato
chips!
Squidoo
has articles about even more flavors of potato chips and recipes for
making potato chips. Maybe you can make this yummy snack a bit more healthy!
Also
on this date:
