Bailey Arnold

Mrs. Lewis-Slamkova

Food Science

23 January 2019

George Crum

George Crum was widely credited with the invention of the first potato chip. He was born

on July 15, 1824 in New York and died on July 22, 1914 at the age of 90, the cause of death was

old age. Crum did not attend any college and discovered his passion and talent for cooking,

which he then began working as a chef at the Moon’s Lakes Resort in 1853. When serving

customers at the Resort there were many customers that complained about the thickly-cut

potatoes, one in specific was Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was a regular customer. He would

complain about every batch made by Crum, so out of anger he decided to fry them to a crisp and

season them with a lot of salt. Surprisingly, Vanderbilt was in love with the flavor and thought it
was very appetizing. Crum immediately started serving the fries with all of his meals in paper

cones. However there is another story that his sister, Kate Wicks was cutting the potatoes to thin

and a slice accidentally fell into the fryer, creating a potato chip.