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A Brief History of Crisps
from Potton February 2023
by Villager Mag
My teenage son wandered into the kitchen and opened a bag of crisps. H sniffed the contents appreciatively. ‘Mmm…I wonder who invented crisps…’ he said before popping one into his mouth and proffering the bag in my direction. Good question I thought.
The first reference I could find to something resembling the modern crisp was in a recipe book, The Cook’s Oracle, by William Kitchiner, which was published 1817. Recipe 104 is titled “Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings”. The author advises that they are, ‘…sprinkled with a very little salt.’ Kitchiner’s book was popular and sold well on both sides of the Atlantic. His sliced, fried potato recipe was referenced in many other recipe books and Kitchiner was something of a celebrity chef in his lifetime. He was also an optician, and an amateur musician! A man of many talents.
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In 1910 Mr. and Mrs. Mikesell were running a small business in Dayton, Ohio, selling dried beef and sausages. They acquired some equipment for making potato crisps (called chips in the US) and the Mikesell’s Potato Chip Company was born. They still claim to be the oldest commercial potato crisp (chip) company on record.
It took a decade for the idea of crisps to reach the UK, and again it was husband-and-wife team at the forefront, running their small business out of a West London garage
Frank Smith and his wife cut, fried and package potatoes which they sold in the Cricklewood Crown pub next door, in greaseproof paper bags. Initially he provided salt shakers for the patrons to season their crisps but they were always being stolen, so Frank came up with the idea of providing a small blue sachet of salt instead, and invented Salt and Shake crisps. The crunchy salty snack proved a big hit, and the Smiths were so successful that in 1927, Frank was able to set up a factory in Brentford’s Golden mile, and expand the business.
Salt was the only seasoning available until Joe ‘Spud’ Murphy came along. He owned the Irish crisps company Tayto, and in the 1950s, his team developed the technology to add seasoning during manufacture. The very first commercial flavour was Cheese & Onion, launched in 1954. Companies worldwide quickly sought to buy the rights to Tayto’s technique and a few years later Salt & Vinegar crisps became available. Today in spite of the hundreds of flavours available, Ready Salted, Cheese and Onion and Salt and Vinegar are still the most popular flavours. In the US the first flavoured crisps to emerge were barbecue flavour, and no other flavours were available until the 1970s.
Today in the UK crisps are one of our most popular and well-loved savoury snacks, and approximately 140 000 tonnes of crisps are sold each year. Happy munching!