NATIONAL POTATO CHIP DAY
America’s #1 snack food is celebrated each year on March 14th. It is National Potato Chip Day. This is a day that will be enjoyed by millions of people across the country.
Following is a little history about how the popular potato chip came to be:
On August 24, 1853 an unhappy restaurant customer, complaining that his potatoes were too thick and soggy, kept sending them back. Chef, George Crum, decided to slice the potatoes as thin as possible, frying them until crisp and added extra salt. To the chef’s surprise, the customer loved them and they soon became a regular item on the restaurant’s menu under the name of “Saratoga Chips”.
Alternative explanations of the beginning of potato chips date them to recipes in Shilling Cookery for the People by Alexis Soyer (1845) or Mary Randolph’s The Virginia House-Wife (1824).”
** The Dayton, Ohio-based Mike-sell’s Potato Chip Company, founded in 1910, calls itself the “oldest potato chip company in the United States ** New England-based Tri-Sum Potato Chips, originally founded in 1908 as the Leominster Potato Chip Company, in Leominster, Massachusetts claim to be America’s first potato chip manufacturer.
** In the 20th century, potato chips spread beyond chef-cooked restaurant fare and began to be mass-produced for home consumption.
** Flavored chips were born in the 1950′s.
** Potato Chip sales are over $15 billion a year worldwide!