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Speaker 1: Linda dot com slash brain Stuff. Welcome to brain Stuff
Speaker 1: from how Stuff works dot com Where smart Happens. Hi
Speaker 1: Am Marshall Brain with today's question where did the potato
Speaker 1: chip come from? Fried potatoes were first introduced in the
Speaker 1: United States by Thomas Jefferson in the late eighteenth century.
Speaker 1: Jefferson had come across them while he was in Paris.
Speaker 1: During the early nineteenth century, fried potatoes steadily gained in popularity.
Speaker 1: They became a common menu item at restaurants across the country.
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty three, a diner at Moon's Lake House
Speaker 1: in Saratoga Springs, New York, ordered fried potatoes with his meal.
Speaker 1: The diner, rumored to have been Cornelius Vanderbilt, sent the
Speaker 1: potatoes back to the kitchen with a complaint that they
Speaker 1: were not crispy enough. The chef at the restaurant, George Crumb,
Speaker 1: apparently was furious with the criticism, so he sliced the
Speaker 1: potatoes paper thin, salted them heavily, and refried them ironically
Speaker 1: instead of ruining the meal for the diner. Crumb's creation
Speaker 1: was a hit. The owner of Moon's Lake House, realizing
Speaker 1: that the chips were delicious, made them a menu item. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Crumb opened his own restaurant that featured the thin fried
Speaker 1: potatoes as well. He called them Saratoga chips. As word
Speaker 1: of the chips got out, other restaurants began to serve them.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long before potato chips were a staple at
Speaker 1: restaurants across the country. William Tapadon of Cleveland, Ohio, was
Speaker 1: credited with taking the potato chip out of the restaurant
Speaker 1: and into the grocery store. In eighteen ninety five. He
Speaker 1: began selling potato chips to local grocers and turned his
Speaker 1: barn into the world's first potato chip factory. During the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundred, several companies built large factories for the
Speaker 1: mass production of potato chips, and the nineteen twenties saw
Speaker 1: the birth of three companies that defined the potato chip
Speaker 1: industry today. First, Earl Wise Senior had too many potatoes
Speaker 1: at his Wise delicatess In company, which was founded in Berwick, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty one, he decided to make potato chips
Speaker 1: out of the extras and sell them in brown paper
Speaker 1: bags through the delicatess In as Wise Potato chips. Herman
Speaker 1: Ley began selling potato chips in the South, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two he founded Lays in Nashville, Tennessee, as
Speaker 1: a distributor for the chip factory in Atlanta, Georgia. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight, Lay purchased the chip factory and start
Speaker 1: selling Lays brand potato chips. In nine Bill and Sally
Speaker 1: Utts founded UTS Quality Foods in Hanover, Pennsylvania. Uts marketed
Speaker 1: and sold chips made by his wife Sally called Hanover
Speaker 1: Home brand potato chips. Today, potato chips are America's favorite
Speaker 1: snack food and come in an amazing number of varieties.
Speaker 1: Modern factories mass produced the chips using continuous fryers or
Speaker 1: flash frying. Some chips are made from reconstituted potato flakes
Speaker 1: instead of raw potato. Slices. Now, the question is are
Speaker 1: potato chips a good idea or a bad idea? If
Speaker 1: you think about it, what you've got is a package
Speaker 1: that contains fat, which isn't great for you, high glycemic
Speaker 1: carbohydrates which aren't great for you, and a lot of salt,
Speaker 1: which isn't great for you either. Maybe this wasn't the
Speaker 1: greatest invention ever created. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: and forget to check out the brain stuff blog on
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