• Irwin's Home Page
  • All About My Books
  • Irwin the Frog's Little Blog
  • About Me and My Family
  • Irwin's Family Photos
  • More Family Photos
  • Land of Lily Pad
  • Life in Lily Pad and Frog Holidays
  • Fun Stuff
  • Cool Stuff to Learn
  • How to Behave in the Swamp
  • Irwin's Favorite Things

      The Frog's Blog

Hi friends. This blog is a labor of love and I want to continue writing every day for a long time to come. But I need a little help. The fees to maintain this website are getting costly for a little frog. If you enjoy reading my blogs, will you please donate a dollar or two, or whatever you can, to help me keep this site (and blog) up and running? I'm on PayPal at irwinquagmirewart@gmail.com. Thank you!

Contact me

Bet you can't eat just one.

6/17/2018

0 Comments

 
Yesterday was Father's Day and, like many of you, I honored dad by cooking a few of his favorite foods on the backyard grill. Mom prepared a bunch of tasty side dishes and little brother Quigley insisted there be plenty of his favorite treat....potato chips. We take chips for granted. They've seemingly been around forever. They're plentiful; they can be found at any grocery or convenience store, truck stop and are a staple side dish at most diners. Just order a sandwich and good chances it'll come with chips.
But have you ever given any thought to their origin? I hadn't until yesterday when Quigley, Jr. said that he wished he'd invented potato chips. That got me wondering...who DID invent potato chips...and when did they first appear? Here's what I learned.
​George Crum, born George Speck was born July 15, 1824. George became a renowned chef at Moon's Lake House in Sarasota Springs, New York in the mid-1800's. Moon's Lake House was a high-end restaurant that catered to very wealthy patrons when George went to work for there.  One of those patrons was Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt who regularly forgot Chef George's given surname. He began calling him Crum and it stuck. George Speck was known professionally as George Crum forever after.
Legend has it that the potato chip was invented when a picky customer, many think it was Vanderbilt himself, kept sending his french fries back because they were too thick. Becoming frustrated with the customer's constant complaints, Chef George sought revenge by slicing the potatoes paper-thin, frying them until they were crispy, and topping them off with a lot of salt. As luck would have it, the customer loved them and Moon's Lake House restaurant added them to their menu, calling them Sarasota Chips.
But like every good story, there are a number of notable disputes. Recipes for slicing potatoes wafer-thin and frying them supposedly appeared in cookbooks around the early 1800's...well before Crum was ever born. Several reports and biographies on George Crum are conspicuously missing any mention of his famous invention. His obituary neglected to mention it, as well. The best dispute, however, comes from his own sister Kate Wicks who claims it was she who invented the potato chip. Her obituary published in 1924, lists her age as 102. The obit goes on to say that while she was working at Moon's Lake House, alongside her brother George, she inadvertently let a sliver of a potato fall into the fryer. She let Crum taste it. His "enthusiastic approval" led to his decision to add it to the restaurant's menu. This story is supported by Wick's own recount of the event and has been published in several periodicals. 
Visitors came from far and wide to taste this new treat sensation and Cary Moon, owner of the restaurant, even tried to claim the invention as his own. Moon even went so far as to sell boxes of the now-famous Sarasota Chips. Crum eventually left Moon's establishment and opened up his own restaurant, simply named "Crum's," in 1860. Chef George provided each table with a basket of chips. 
Crum's chips remained a local delicacy until 1920 when a salesman and entrepreneur named Herman Lay began traveling through the south introducing the potato chip to communities all over. Shortly thereafter, potato chips went into mass-production and Lay's Potato Chips were sold nationwide. Bet you can't eat just one...I know little brother Quigley sure can't!
I hope you had a wonderful and safe Father's Day.  Until tomorrow,  I wish you
                                                                    PEACE.
Picture
​Nguyen, Tuan. "The Story of George Crum, Inventor of the Potato Chip." ThoughtCo, Jun. 13, 2018, thoughtco.com/george-crum-potato-chip-4165983.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Land of Lily Pad's first published author. I enjoy writing fun and educational books for kids. My blog is for you parents; the kiddos might like some of them, too. As always, everything I write is family-friendly, so don't hesitate to share my messages with everyone. I hope you find them helpful and maybe even inspirational. Cheers! 

    Archives

    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

All roads lead to the Land of Lily Pad