What are potato chips?
A: A potato chip is a thin slice of potato that has been either deep fried,
baked, or air fried until crunchy.
They are commonly served as a what?
A: A snack, side dish, or appetizer.
The basic chips are cooked and what?
A: Salted.
Additional varieties are manufactured using various
flavorings and ingredients including what?
A: Herbs, spices, cheeses, other natural flavors, artificial flavors, and
additives.
Where do potato chips form a large part of the snack
food and convenience food market?
A: In Western countries.
The global potato chip market generated how much total
revenue in 2005?
A: US$16.49 billion
This accounted for how much of the total savory snacks
market in that year?
A: 35.5%.
The earliest known recipe for something similar to
today's potato chips is in what book?
A: In William Kitchiner's book The Cook's Oracle published in 1817, which
was a bestseller in the United Kingdom and the United States.
An 1825 British book about French cookery calls them
"Pommes de Terre frites" (second recipe) and calls for thin slices of potato
fried in what?
A: "Clarified butter or goose dripping", drained and sprinkled with salt.
Where are early recipes for potato chips in the US
found?
A: In Mary Randolph's Virginia House-Wife (1824) and in N.K.M. Lee's Cook's
Own Book (1832).
In the 20th century, potato chips spread beyond
chef-cooked restaurant fare and began to be what?
A: Mass-produced for home consumption.
The Dayton, Ohio-based Mikesell's Potato Chip Company,
founded in 1910, identifies as what?
A: 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
what?
A: Potato chip manufacturers.
What flavor were the first flavored chips in the United
States that were being manufactured and sold by 1954?
A: Barbecue flavor.
In 1958, Herr's was the first company to introduce what
in Pennsylvania?
A: Barbecue-flavored potato chips.
Chips sold in markets were usually sold in what?
A: Tins or scooped out of storefront
glass bins and delivered by horse and
wagon.
Early potato chip bags were made of what?
A: Wax paper with the ends ironed or stapled together.
When potato chips were packaged in barrels or tins, the
chips left at the bottom were what?
A: Stale and crumbled.
In the 1920s, Laura Scudder, an entrepreneur in
Monterey Park, California, started having her workers do what?
A: Take home sheets of wax paper to iron into the form of bags, which were
filled with chips at her factory the next day.
What did this pioneering method do?
A: It reduced crumbling and kept the chips fresh and crisp longer.
This innovation, along with the
invention of
cellophane, allowed potato chips to become what?
A: A mass-market product.
Today, chips are packaged in plastic bags, with
nitrogen gas blown in prior to sealing to do what?
A: To lengthen shelf life and provide protection against crushing.
Most potato chips contain high levels of what?
A: Sodium, from salt.
This has been linked to health issues such as what?
A: High blood pressure.