Mitchell’s investigation included the possibility that the potato chip was not invented in Saratoga at all (though it certainly earned its popularity there). More recently, the historian Dave Mitchell investigated the people credited with the creation of the potato chip-including Eliza, Vanderbilt, both of the Moons, Crum’s sister Kate Wicks, restaurant manager Hiram Thomas, and various Lake House cooks. Regis Paper Company, which produced potato chip packaging, included a portrait of Crum beneath the headline: “This man cooked for Commodore Vanderbilt and Jay Gould and created a billion dollar business to boot.” A 1977 cookbook by a Vanderbilt descendent made the Commodore more central, anointing the allegedly fussy customer as the “founder of the potato chip.” And Vanderbilt was first introduced in an advertisement produced 120 years after the supposed invention. The first known mention of Crum’s involvement dated to 1885. Moon’s Lake House received credit for the potato chip in the mid-1800s. Banner traced the evolution of the legend.
But in the 1980s-when there were still a few people in Saratoga Springs who had known him-the folklorists William S. (via Wikimedia Commons)Ĭrum died in 1914. A New York Herald report from the Lake House in July of 1849 introduced readers to “Eliza, the cook,” whose “potato frying reputation is one of the prominent matters of remark at Saratoga.” “Who would think,” the Herald reporter wrote, “that simple potatoes could be made such a luxury!”Īcademics have spent years unwinding the facts from these fictions, even as the Potato Chip/Snack Food Association placed a historical marker (soon stolen) near the site of the Lake House in 1976, honoring Crum’s culinary contribution. And, most importantly, crispy fried potatoes were not new to Saratoga in the summer of 1853. The Moons, who play a small but instrumental role in the story, did not purchase the Lake House until 1854. Cornelius Vanderbilt is falsely accused of being the difficult customer in fact, he spent that summer touring Europe with his family (though he did frequent Saratoga). In almost all its particulars, the story of George Crum’s deep-fried stunt is wrong. The true origin of the crispy fried potato will probably never be known. Except for one small thing: That’s not what happened. It’s a good one, an origin story that crosses cultural and economic boundaries for a snack food that does the same. That’s the oft-repeated story about the invention of the potato chip. More than 150 years later Crum’s delicacy has gone on to even greater fame today, Americans consume about 1.5 billion pounds of potato chips every year. There, millionaires like Vanderbilt would stand in line for hours for “Saratoga chips.” In later years, Crum opened his own restaurant, Crum’s Place, nearby. The proprietress Harriet Moon soon declared that these chips would henceforth be served in delicate paper cornucopias as the signature dish of Moon’s Lake House. He sent the browned and brittle rounds to the table as an insult, but Commodore Vanderbilt, as he was known, was thrilled with the novel snack. In his anger, the cook shaved the thinnest possible pieces of potato into hot oil and fried them to a crisp. The french fries were too thick, Vanderbilt said.Ĭrum did not take the criticism well. But when the plate was presented to Vanderbilt, he refused it. In the kitchen, George Crum, the half African American, half Native American cook, prepared the meal, likely woodcock or partridge from the restaurant’s grounds, served with french fries. In the summer of 1853, in the cavernous dining room of Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York, Cornelius Vanderbilt, a wealthy steamship owner, waited for his dinner.
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