In the summer of 1853, Native American George Crum was employed as a chef at an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. One dinner guest found Crum's French fries too thick for his liking and rejected the order. Crum decided to rile the guest by producing fries too thin and crisp to skewer with a fork. The plan backfired. The guest was ecstatic over the browned, paper-thin potatoes, and other diners began requesting Crum's potato chips

Invention: Potato Chips in 1853


Definition: noun / po·ta·to chips

Function: Snack food made of a thin slice of white potato that has been cooked until crisp and then usually salted. Also known as Saratoga Chips or potato crisps.

Patent: Never patented.

Inventor: George Crum (a.k.a. George Speck*)

Criteria: First to invent.

Birth: 1822 Saratoga Lake, New York

Death: 1914 Saratoga Lake, New York

Nationality:Narive American


As a world food, potatoes are second in human consumption only to rice. And as thin, salted, crisp chips, they are America's favorite snack food. Potato chips originated in New England as one man's variation on the French-fried potato, and their production was the result not of a sudden stroke of culinary invention but of a fit of pique.

Fun facts:

Did you know

Americans today consume more potato chips than any other people in the world.

The potato chip did not leave the United States as a food item until 1921 when they were introduced in England. Since the words chips was already in use for what we in this country call french fries, the word crisps was used.

The potato used for making chips is not the same brand of potato you get at the super market. Special varieties are grown specifically for chips. They are called “chipping” potatoes and have to be specially ordered.