In honor of Black History Month we celebrate George Crum, born George Speck and his sister, Catherine Speck Wicks of African and Native American heritage who
invented the potato chip. One of the world’s most famous snacks.
According to the Saratoga County History Center in the summer of 1853 Crum
was working as a chef at the Moon Lake House in Saratoga, NY when he
happened to create the world’s most famous snack. A patron ordered a
plate of French fried potatoes and kept sending them back to the
kitchen because they were too thick and soft. So, to teach him a lesson,
Crum and his sister who worked alongside him in the kitchen sliced the
potatoes super thin and cooked them hard and doused them with salt.
The potato chip became a big hit.
In 1860 Crum opened his own restraurant, serving a basket of chips to every table. He did not file for a patent and that opened the door for it's mass production.