On March 14 we celebrate America’s #1 snack food, the Potato Chip. All of this fuss begs the question, where did the potato chip come from, anyway? Well, apparently, there are several who claim to have come up with the concept of slicing potatoes super thin and deep frying them to crispy perfection.
First, let’s go into the Saratoga Chip. On August 24, 1853, an unhappy restaurant customer kept sending his potatoes back to the kitchen, complaining they were thick and soggy. Chef George Crum decided to slice the potatoes as thin as possible, frying them until crisp and adding extra salt. To the chef’s surprise, the customer loved them. The crispy potatoes soon became a regular item on the restaurant’s menu under the name of “Saratoga Chips.”
Other explanations point for the existence of the potato chip point to recipes in Shilling Cookery for the People by Alexis Soyer (1845) or Mary Randolph’s The Virginia House-Wife (1824). While many references between these dates sliced potatoes and fried them in grease, uncertainty remains whether the potatoes were fried to a crisp.
However, by the late 1870s, menus across the country used the term “Saratoga Chips” on train cars, hotel restaurants, and street carts. The name carried into grocers when bakeries made the chips in larger batches. They shipped them by wagon to the restaurants and grocers by the barrel. The grocers sold them to private families by the pound. Folks were instructed to bake the chips in a hot oven for a few minutes, and the chips would be as crisp as if fried that same day.
And then there’s the Dayton, Ohio-based Mike-sell’s Potato Chip Company, founded in 1910, which calls itself the “oldest potato chip company in the United States.” New England-based Tri-Sum Potato Chips, originally established in 1908 as the Leominster Potato Chip Company, in Leominster, Massachusetts, claims to be America’s first potato chip manufacturer.
Regardless of who came up with it first, during the 20th century, potato chips really took off when they began to be mass-produced for home consumption, which is where Lay’s comes into the picture.
According to snackhistory.com, Herman Lay stepped into the business in 1932, when he opened a company that made various snack foods in Nashville. A few years later, in 1938, he bought another Southern snack business – one that made potato chips in Atlanta — called Barrett Food Company. Herman Lay named the combined business H.W, Lay Lingo & Company, quite a mouthful, even for a food manufacturer.
Not long after, Herman Lay hit the road, traveling throughout the American South hawking his Lay’s potato chips out of his car, and making lifelong customers out of the deal. Lay knew he had a great product, and he knew that anyone who tasted it wanted more, he just had to figure out how to take his sales opportunities to a higher level.
In 1944, Lay shortened the name of his business to “Lay’s Lay Lingo Company” and made a very bold move. Lay’s Lay Lingo Company bought television advertisements. It was the first snack manufacturer to advertise on TV, and the first to do so with a celebrity spokesman, which was actor Bert Lahr, well known as The Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz.” Over the years, celebrities from all walks of life have done Lay’s potato chips ads. In most recent times, actors Tracee Ellis, Anna Kendrick, Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd have been featured in Lay’s potato chip commercials.
Herman Lay was doing well in the snack manufacturing business for a couple of decades. His chief competitor was the Frito Company, which was founded by Charles. After years of competition, the two companies decided to join forces and became the snack-food giant Frito-Lay in 1961. At that point, Frito-Lay had a revenue of more than $125 million.
Lay’s are known for their extensive list of flavors, both in America and around the world. In recent years, they have even held “Do Us a Flavor” contests for new taste profiles, offering $1 million for the next big idea. Contests aside, Lay’s has come up with plenty of flavor ideas of its own, and those include quite a list worldwide.
In the United States, flavors have been slightly slower to market. Aside from plain Lay’s potato chips, American finally got a new flavor in 1958, when barbecue chips were released. Finally, another flavor emerged in the late 1970’s, Sour Cream & Onion. Since then, things have really taken off in the American market. Lay’s now come in Garden Tomato and Basil, Honey Barbecue, Sweet Southern Heat Barbecue, Tapatio Limon, Simply Sea Salt Thick Cut, Fiery Habanero, and Dill Pickle. Through the “Do Us a Flavor” contest, some other newcomers have been tried and tested. Those include Sriracha, Chicken and Waffles, Crispy taco, Everything Bagel and Greek Tzatziki.
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