When people crave a salty snack, they often think of the classic potato chip. Today, the potato chip is available in many variations. Potato chips can be found in most grocery stores in America and around the world. Still one may stop and wonder how something as simple as the potato chip grew into such a large phenomenon.

According to the Snack Food Association, the first potato chip was made in 1853 in a Saratoga Springs, New York restaurant when Cornelius Vanderbilt sent his potatoes back to the kitchen for being too thick and soggy. The chef tried again to prepare the potatoes to Mr. Vanderbilt’s liking and failed. By this point the chef, Mr. George Crum, was angered and cut the potatoes too thin on purpose, fried them too long, and added more salt than usual. Mr. Vanderbilt loved these potato creations so much that all of the other tables requested their potatoes prepared in the same way. The potato chip was born.

For many years, restaurants recreated Mr. Crum’s potato chip.  The Snack Food Association credits William Tappendon as the first to make and sell potato chips to markets in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1895. They also found that it was not until the 1920s, however, that companies found a way to peel, fry and package potato chips in a way to preserve them and make them available to stores and consumers. By the 1950s, potato chips were sold with great abundance in grocery stores, and they even came with a bag of salt for personal seasoning.

Potato chips have come a long way in today’s snacking world. Reports from The Snack Food Association state that chip varieties today combine natural and artificial flavoring that is added directly to the potato chip right after frying is complete. FritoLay, a division of the company PepsiCo, holds a “Do Us A Flavor” competition. According to FritoLay, the competition gives contestants a chance to enter their favorite flavor idea for a new potato chip and even a chance to win one million dollars. The 2014 winner, Meneko Spigner McBeth, won with the flavor of wasabi ginger. Wasabi ginger beat out cappuccino, bacon mac and cheese and mango salsa.

Wasabi ginger is not the only new flavor hitting the market this year. Boulder Canyon Natural Foods said they have created a four course (or bag) holiday feast consisting of only potato chips. The flavors include stuffing, turkey and gravy, pumpkin pie and cranberry.

Some potato chips today are even made with different types of potatoes, such as Terra Blues potato chips that are made with a blue potato, which is offered as an in flight snack on the airline JetBlue. With all of the choices and varieties of potato chips today, finding a flavor that one likes can be overwhelming. Students here at MHS shared what their favorite flavor is. Junior Eric Greenhaw said, “If I had to choose my favorite potato chip, it would be the original. It was the first and remains the best.” Sophomore Alexandra Dumas said, “If I had to choose a favorite flavor potato chip it would be sour cream and onion.”  Sophomore Riley Carraher said, “Barbecue potato chips are the best.”

From a simple beginning as a chef’s revenge to the making of a billion dollar industry, potato chips are a snacking staple for the world.