Stunt Gave Us Potato Chips

You can thank a curmudgeonly railroad magnate for the beloved potato chip’s creation.

In 1835, Cornelius Vanderbilt angrily sent back a plate of fried potatoes to a Saratoga Springs, N.Y., kitchen, complaining that they were sliced too thick.

George Crum, a lowly cook who was tired of hearing complaints from the rich, decided he would show the rail baron a thing or two by overcompensating with his second batch.

“You want thin? I’ll give you thin!” he must have mumbled to himself as he sliced some of the slimmest potato wedges ever seen that century.

An Internet “snackologist” and food historian named Jane (just Jane, thank you) says Vanderbilt absolutely loved the ultra-thin, fried potatoes and told his wealthy friends of this new taste sensation.

“What was intended as a stunt turned out to be an instant hit,” notes Jane, who supplies food history and trivia at her info-packed Ask Jane site (http://www.snax.com/ askjane.html).

There she also explains what many once thought was unexplainable: How cheese puffs are made.