ATDTDA (2): Saratoga chips (39.10)

[Tim Strzechowski]

When their business was done, they invited him over to a table under an awning, where all at once, over root beer and Saratoga chips, Lew found himself confessing "everything," which in fact wasn't much [...] (p. 39).

 

[...] The story is that a Native American named George Crum was the chef at a resort called Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga County,  New York, an area of rich history and old hunting grounds that the Mohawk and Iroquois tribes called "Sarachtogue."   According to the account in "Panati's Origins of Everyday Things" by Charles Panati (published by Harper and Row, 1987), potato chips were invented in 1853 in Saratoga Springs, New York.  A visitor to that resort city, who is often identified as Cornelius Vanderbilt (called "The Commodore"), returned a meal to the kitchen, complaining that the fried potatoes were not sliced thin enough to suit his taste.   Crum was proud of his cooking and, thinking to teach the Commodore a lesson, he sliced the potatoes so thin he was sure the old man wouldn't like them that way.  He didn't.  He asked for them to be sliced even thinner.  Now Crum responded by slicing them so thin they couldn't be eaten with a fork without breaking them.  The Commodore was
 satisfied.  He liked the crispy morsels!  Crum decided not only to keep on making them that way, but eventually he opened his own restaurant and featured what became known as "Saratoga chips." [...]
 
http://members.cox.net/jjschnebel/potchips.html
 
http://www.geography.ccsu.edu/harmonj/atlas/potchips.htm
 
http://www.bartleby.com/87/r0870.html
 
 
SARATOGA SPRINGS -- A German television station was in the Spa City Wednesday filming part of a series on inventors. 

Tilman Achtnich, director of the documentary series, said each documentary will be 30 minutes long and will air on the German public TV channel ARD on June 4.

Achtnich and his crew are documenting George Crum, the inventor of the potato chip. They did research and found out the potato chip came from Saratoga Springs. The name of the documentary is 'The Potato Chip of Mr. Crum.'

Other inventions studied in the series are the ball point pen, electric shaver, vacuum, drill and Band-Aid. [...]
 
http://www.saratogian.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16437518&BRD=1169&PAG=461&dept_id=17708&rfi=6