What is National Potato Chip Day?
On March 14th, America's most popular snack food will be named on America's top snack food, National Potato Chip Day. Millions will enjoy their favorite chip this holiday. It's a good thing that there are so many to choose from!
Saratoga chips
An unhappy restaurant patron continued to bring his potatoes back to the kitchen on August 24, 1853, claiming they were thick and soggy. Chef George Crum decided to slice the potatoes as thin as possible, grilling them until crispy and adding more salt. The customer loved them, to the chef's surprise. Under the name of "Saratoga Chips," the crispy potatoes soon became a staple on the restaurant's menu, under the name "Saratoga Chips."
Other explanations point to the potato chip point to recipes in Shilling Cookery for the People by Alexis Soyer (1845) or Mary Randolph's The Virginia House-Wife (1824). Although many sources referred to these dates sliced potatoes and fried them in grease, it is also unknown if the potatoes were fried to a crisp.
However, menus throughout the country in the late 1870s, hotel restaurants, and street carts used the term "Saratoga Chips" on train cars, hotel restaurants, and street carts. When bakeries made the chips in larger batches, the name was turned into grocers. They were delivered by wagon to the restaurants and grocers by the barrel. By the pound, the grocers sold them to private households. Folks were told to bake the chips in a hot oven for a few minutes, and the chips would be as crisp as if fried the same day.
