Potato chips
Potato chips or crisps are thin slices of potato that have been deep-fried, baked, or air-fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appetizer. The basic chips are cooked and salted; additional varieties are manufactured using various flavorings and ingredients including herbs, spices, cheeses, other natural flavors, artificial flavors, and additives.
Potato chips form a large part of the snack food and convenience food market in Western countries. The global potato chip market generated total revenue of US$16.49 billion in 2005. This accounted for 35.5% of the total savory snacks market in that year.
History
The earliest known recipe for potato chips is in the English cook William Kitchiner's book The Cook's Oracle published in 1817 in London, which was a bestseller in the United Kingdom and the United States. The 1822 edition's recipe for "Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings" reads "peel large potatoes... cut them in shavings round and round, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping". An 1825 British book about French cookery calls them "Pommes de Terre frites" and calls for thin slices of potato fried in "clarified butter or goose dripping", to be drained once crisp and sprinkled with salt. Early recipes for potato chips in the US are found in Mary Randolph's Virginia House-Wife and in N.K.M. Lee's Cook's Own Book, both of which explicitly cite Kitchiner.A legend associates the creation of potato chips with Saratoga Springs, New York, decades later than the first recorded recipe. By the late nineteenth century, a popular version of the story, today known to be untrue, attributed the dish to George Crum, a cook at Moon's Lake House who was trying to appease an unhappy customer on August 24, 1853. The customer kept sending back his French-fried potatoes, complaining that they were too thick, too "soggy", or not salted enough. Frustrated, Crum sliced several potatoes extremely thin, fried them to a crisp, and seasoned them with extra salt – to his surprise, the customer loved them. They soon came to be called "Saratoga Chips", a name that persisted into the mid-twentieth century. A version of this story was popularized in a 1973 national advertising campaign by St. Regis Paper Company which manufactured packaging for chips, claiming that Crum's customer was Cornelius Vanderbilt. The story is today known to be a myth, and historians and academics have identified a number of problems with the story: Vanderbilt was in Europe during the alleged encounter, the Moons didn't purchase the Lake House until 1854, and crispy fried potatoes were not unknown to Saratoga in 1853. However, the story remains frequently cited in popular media.
Production
In the 20th century, potato chips spread beyond chef-cooked restaurant fare and began to be mass-produced for home consumption. The Dayton, Ohio-based Mikesell's Potato Chip Company, founded in 1910, identifies as the "oldest potato chip company in the United States". New Hampshire-based Granite State Potato Chip Factory, founded in 1905 and in operation until 2007, was one of America's first potato chip manufacturers.Flavoring
In an idea originated by the Smiths Potato Crisps Company Ltd, formed in 1920, Frank Smith packaged his chips in greaseproof paper bags and attached a twist of salt, and sold them around London. The potato chip remained otherwise unseasoned until the 1950s. After some trial and error, in 1954, Joe "Spud" Murphy, the owner of the Irish crisps company Tayto, and his employee Seamus Burke, produced the world's first seasoned chips: cheese & onion. Companies worldwide sought to buy the rights to Tayto's technique. Walkers of Leicester, England, produced cheese & onion the same year. Golden Wonder also started to produce cheese & onion, and Smith's countered with salt & vinegar, starting a two-decade-long flavor war.The first flavored chips in the United States, barbecue flavor, are also traced to 1954. In 1958, Herr's was the first company to introduce barbecue-flavored potato chips in Pennsylvania.
Packaging
In the 1920s, Laura Scudder, an entrepreneur in Monterey Park, California, started having her workers take home sheets of wax paper to iron into the form of bags, which were filled with chips at her factory the next day. This pioneering method reduced crumbling and kept the chips fresh and crisp longer. This innovation, along with the invention of cellophane, allowed potato chips to become a mass-market product.Kettle-cooked chips
Chips were long made in a batch process, where the potato slices are rinsed with cold water to release starch, fried at a low temperature of, and continuously raked to prevent them from sticking together.Industrial advances resulted in a shift to production by a continuous process, running the chips through a vat of hot oil and drying them in a conveyor process.
Some small producers continued to use a batch process, notably in Maui. In 1980, inspired by the Maui Chip, an entrepreneur started Cape Cod Potato Chips to produce thicker, batch-cooked "Hawaiian style" potato chips, which came to be known as kettle-style or hand-cooked chips and became a premium, "gourmet" item. Kettle chips are thicker and the surface starch is not rinsed off, resulting in a style of chip called "hard-bite".
Nomenclature
Little consistency exists in the English-speaking world for the name of this food. North American English uses "chips", though Canadians may also call French fries, especially thick ones, "chips" as well. "Crisps" may be used for thin fried or baked products made from potato paste. An example of this type of snack is Pringles, which are marketed as "potato crisps" even in the United States.In the United Kingdom and Ireland they are called "crisps", whilst "chips" refers to french fries. In Australia, some parts of South Africa, New Zealand, India, and the West Indies, especially in Barbados, both forms of potato product are simply known as "chips", as are the larger "home-style" variety. In the north of New Zealand, they are sometimes affectionately known as "chippies"; however, they are marketed as "chips" throughout the country. In Australia and New Zealand, a distinction is sometimes made between "hot chips" and "chips" or "potato chips". In Bangladesh, they are generally known as "chip" or "chips", and much less frequently as "crisps" and locally, alu bhaja.
In German-speaking countries and in countries of the former Yugoslavia, fried thin potato slices are known as "chips", with a clear distinction from French fries. In Brazil, "home-style" potato chips are known as batatas portuguesas if their sides are relatively smooth and batatas prussianas if their sides show a wafer biscuit-like pattern, whilst American-like industrial uniform potato chips made from a fried potato purée-based dough are known as "batata chips", or just "chips".
Health concerns
Most potato chips contain high levels of sodium, from salt. This has been linked to health issues such as high blood pressure. However, researchers at Queen Mary University of London in 2004 have noted that a small "bag of ready-salted crisps" contains less salt than a serving of many breakfast cereals, including "every brand of cornflakes on sale in the UK".Some potato chip companies have responded to the long-standing concerns by investing in research and development to modify existing recipes and create health-conscious products. PepsiCo research shows that about 80% of salt on chips is not sensed by the tongue before being swallowed. Frito-Lay spent $414 million in 2009 on product development, including development of salt crystals that would reduce the salt content of Lay's potato chips without adversely affecting flavor.
Unsalted chips are available, e.g. the longstanding British brand Salt 'n' Shake, whose chips are not seasoned but instead include a small salt sachet in the bag for seasoning to taste. Many other popular brands in the United States, such as Frito-Lay, also offer such a product.
One health scare related to potato chips focused on acrylamide, which is produced when potatoes are fried or baked at high temperatures. This discovery in 2002 led to international health concerns. Subsequent research has however found that it is not likely that the acrylamides in burnt or well-cooked food cause cancer in humans; Cancer Research UK categorizes the idea that burnt food causes cancer as a "myth".
In August 2008, California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced a settlement with Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods, and Lance Inc., the makers of Cape Cod Potato Chips, for violating the state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. The state had alleged in 2005 that potato chips from these companies failed to document that they contained high levels of acrylamide, which is listed by California since the 1990s as a carcinogen. These companies paid fines and agreed to reduce acrylamide levels to be under 275 parts per billion. Many potato chip manufacturers attempt to remove burned and thus potentially acrylamide-rich chips before the packaging process. Large scanners are used to eliminate chips worst affected by heat.
Regional varieties
Americas
In the United States, major regional brands include Jays, Better Made, Old Dutch, Utz and Zapp's.In Canada, regional varieties include all-dressed, dill pickle, and ketchup. Ketchup chips are flavored with tomato, garlic and onions.
In Colombia, lemon, chicken, chorizo, and sirloin steak with mushroom sauce flavored potato chips are sold.