50 Fun Facts About Potato Chip

The earliest known recipe for potato chips appears in a book published in London in which year?

William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle called them 'Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings', cut round and round 'as you would peel a lemon'.

Legend credits the potato chip to a cook at Moon's Lake House in which New York resort town?

The 1853 story is a myth: the Moons did not even own the Lake House until 1854, and the supposed customer, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was in Europe.

The 1973 ad campaign that spread the Saratoga myth was run by what kind of company?

St. Regis Paper made bags for chips; it also introduced the claim that the annoyed diner was Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The cook at the centre of the Saratoga legend, known as George Crum, was born under what surname?

He later opened his own restaurant, Crum's, in nearby Malta and did serve 'Saratoga chips' there.

Which Dayton, Ohio company, founded in 1910, calls itself the oldest US potato chip maker?

New Hampshire's Granite State Potato Chip Factory was older, founded in 1905, but closed in 2007.

In the 1920s, Frank Smith sold his crisps around London in greaseproof bags with what tucked inside?

The blue salt sachet survives in Britain's Salt 'n' Shake brand; crisps stayed otherwise unflavoured until the 1950s.

The world's first seasoned crisp, cheese and onion, was created in 1954 by which Irish company?

Joe 'Spud' Murphy and employee Seamus Burke worked it out by trial and error, and companies worldwide tried to buy the technique.

Smith's answered its rivals' cheese and onion with which flavour, launched nationally in 1967?

It was tested first by the firm's north-east England subsidiary, Tudor, and started a two-decade flavour war.

The first flavoured chips in the United States, in the 1950s, were which flavour?

Herr's introduced them in Pennsylvania in 1958, four years after the flavour is first traced.

What did Laura Scudder have her workers do at home in the 1920s to pioneer sealed potato chip packaging?

The bags were filled at her Monterey Park factory the next day; she was known as the 'Potato Chip Queen of the West'.

Kettle-cooked chips differ from continuous-process chips because the potato slices are what?

The result is a thicker 'hard-bite' chip; the style was inspired by the Maui Chip.

Which brand, founded in 1980 by Steve Bernard in Hyannis, popularised the kettle-cooked style in the US?

He sold his auto-parts business, bought a storefront in Hyannis and a $3,000 industrial slicer.

In Britain and Ireland, what does the word 'chips' refer to?

Hence fish and chips; the thin fried slices are crisps, while Australia and New Zealand call both 'chips'.

Kellogg's bought Pringles from its inventor in 2012 for roughly how much?

The deal made Kellogg's the world's second-largest snack company; Mars later acquired its spun-off snack arm, Kellanova.

Which company invented Pringles in 1968?

They were first sold as 'Pringle's Newfangled Potato Chips'; Kellogg's bought the brand in 2012 and Mars later bought Kellanova.

The saddle shape of a Pringle is known mathematically as what?

Science-fiction author Gene Wolfe, then a mechanical engineer, helped design the machine that cooks them.

What did Fredric Baur, designer of the Pringles can, ask for after his death in 2008?

His children obliged with an Original-flavour can; the rest of his ashes went in a conventional urn.

One theory says Pringles were named after what?

Two P&G advertising staff reportedly lived on Pringle Drive in Finneytown, and the name sounded good with 'potato chips'.

Herman Lay started out in 1932 selling potato chips from what?

He was a travelling salesman for the Barrett Food Company, which he bought in 1938 and renamed after himself.

H.W. Lay & Company merged in 1961 with which Texas snack maker?

The combined firm merged with Pepsi-Cola in 1965 to create PepsiCo.

Charles Elmer Doolin bought the original Fritos corn-chip recipe in San Antonio in 1932 for how much?

The deal also included a potato ricer and 19 retail accounts; output was about ten pounds of chips a day.

Which stackable Lay's sub-brand was launched to compete with Pringles?

Outside North America PepsiCo sells the same chips as Walkers in Britain and Smith's in Australia.

Walkers was founded in 1948 in which English city, home to the world's largest crisp plant?

The plant turns about 800 tons of potatoes into over 11 million bags a day; a bag takes about 35 minutes from raw potato to dispatch.

Before crisps, what business was the Walker family in?

Post-war meat rationing hit the shop hard, so in 1948 the firm looked for another product; the first bags sold for threepence.

Which former England footballer became the face of Walkers crisps in 1995?

He was born in the same city as the company.

Ireland's dominant crisp brand is such a fixture that in 2010 the company opened what?

The park is now called Emerald Park; the brand's name is used in Ireland for any make of crisps.

Which brand overtook Smith's as Britain's top crisp in the 1960s?

Founded in 1947, it has been owned since 2006 by a Northern Irish snack group.

William and Salie Utz began frying chips at home in 1921 in which Pennsylvania town?

Their initial investment was $300; Salie cooked and Bill delivered to grocers and farmers' markets as far as Baltimore.

Jim Herr was how old when he bought a small Lancaster, Pennsylvania chip company in 1946?

Herr's is now sold in all 50 states and more than 40 countries.

Louisiana's Zapp's chips are kettle-cooked in which oil?

Founder Ron Zappe's first creation, the Cajun Crawtator, was billed in 1985 as the nation's first spicy Cajun chip.

Kettle Foods, founded by Cameron Healy in 1977, is based in which city?

It began as the N. S. Khalsa Company and has a European headquarters in Norwich, England.

Which flavour is a distinctively Canadian potato chip variety?

All-dressed and dill pickle are the other Canadian classics; ketchup chips are seasoned with tomato, garlic and onion.

The 2002 potato chip health scare concerned which chemical formed by frying at high heat?

California later fined Frito-Lay, Kettle and Cape Cod's owner and made them cut levels below 275 parts per billion; Cancer Research UK calls the burnt-food cancer link a myth.

PepsiCo research found roughly what share of the salt on a chip is never tasted before it is swallowed?

Frito-Lay spent $414 million on product development in 2009, partly on salt crystals that taste saltier with less sodium.

What was the fat substitute in some 1990s fat-free chips, notorious for causing digestive trouble?

It was indigestible by design, which was the problem.

Which of these British snacks would NOT count as a potato chip, per critic Tanya Gold?

Wotsits, Quavers, Skips and Hula Hoops are also 'crisps' in name only, since they are not sliced potato.

In 2005 the global potato chip market was worth about how much?

That was more than a third of the whole savoury snack market that year.

In Brazil, home-style chips with a wafer-like ridged pattern are called what?

The smooth-sided ones are 'batatas portuguesas'; industrial dough-based chips are simply 'batata chips'.

Which Japanese company is one of the country's two major chip makers, alongside Koikeya?

Japanese flavours include nori and salt, consommé, wasabi and takoyaki; the firm also sells a spicy 'Ethnican' chip in Hong Kong.

A 2004 Queen Mary University study noted a small bag of ready-salted crisps has less salt than a serving of what?

A useful fact for anyone defending a lunchtime packet.

Walkers' factory, the world's largest crisp plant, turns out over how many bags a day?

That output eats about 800 tons of potatoes daily. A bag takes roughly 35 minutes from raw potato delivery to the dispatch bay.

Which slogan became Lay's best-known line after the 1961 Frito merger?

The merged company already had sales over $127 million a year, then the highest of any snack manufacturer, and joined Pepsi-Cola to form PepsiCo in 1965.

Which sci-fi author and mechanical engineer helped build the machine that cooks Pringles?

Wolfe later wrote The Book of the New Sun. The saddle shape itself came from chemist Fredric Baur, though Alexander Liepa's name is on the patent.

In a 2008 London VAT case, P&G argued Pringles were not crisps because potato content was only what?

P&G also argued the shape 'is not found in nature'. The High Court agreed, but the Court of Appeal reversed the ruling in 2009.

Which flavour won Walkers' 2009 'Do Us a Flavour' public vote?

Emma Rushin of Belper, Derbyshire, dreamed it up. The prize was a permanent slot on shelves, yet it was discontinued a year later.

From 1996, Walkers began filling its crisp bags with which gas instead of air?

The switch followed a move to foil bags in 1993. The gas cushions the crisps and keeps the oil from going rancid.

The Utz couple started frying chips at home in 1921 with an initial investment of how much?

Their hand-operated gear made about 50 pounds of chips an hour. Salie cooked while Bill delivered to grocers and farmers' markets around Hanover and Baltimore.

In 2019 PepsiCo India sued four Gujarat farmers for growing which Lay's potato variety?

After pressure from activists and talks with the Indian government, the company withdrew the lawsuits within a month.

In which US state did P&G first test-market Pringles in 1968?

The earliest ad, in an Evansville newspaper that October, touted 'Pringle Potato Chips' as new at Kroger. They reached most of the US by 1975.

The Granite State Potato Chip Factory, founded in 1905, operated in which state until 2007?

It was one of America's first chip manufacturers, predating Mikesell's of Dayton by five years, though Mikesell's claims the 'oldest' title because it is still operating.