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Chips are one of Europe’s most popular snacks - but how did it all start? With the humble potato (Solanum tuberosum) - a staple part of the European diet. The rather homely potato has an exotic ancestry. Potatoes originated in South America, where the inhabitants of the area we now call Peru ate the root vegetable or ‘papas’ as long as 2,000 years ago.

By the end of the 18th Century, the potato was known and grown everywhere. In Spain the patata, Finland the peruna, Germany the Kartoffel, France the pomme de terre, Ireland the Murphy, Italy the tartuffolo and Netherlands the aardappel (apple of the earth). The potato didn’t become a large-scale consumption product through-out Europe until the beginning of the 19th century.

But how did potatoes come to Europe?

There is an abundance of stories relating how potatoes made their way across the Atlantic. However the most popular of these claims the involvement of such famous adventurers as the Spanish and Elizabethans Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake, who introduced the potato into Europe on their return from their sea voyages. Legend has it that the Spanish were the first, when potatoes arrived with a cargo of treasures snatched from the New World in 1570. Monks from Seville grew them successfully to nourish the sick at their hospital. It is likely that the potato travelled with the Spanish armies into Europe and eventually spread into France, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Russia. Indeed, legend has it that on returning from a long sea adventure, Raleigh brought a potato plant as a present for Queen Elizabeth I.

The plant was grown in the Royal gardens and was eventually harvested. However, the Queens chef, never having seen a potato before, simply made a salad with the leaves. Naturally the Queen was not impressed by this new dish. Raleigh was summoned and duly instructed the kitchen staff that only the potato tubers were to be eaten.
Invention of Potato Crisps Crisps were first made in 1853 by a American Indian Chef - Mr George Crum - at a fashionable hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York State USA. This new dish was prepared for a Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railway magnate - an extremely discriminating customer who complained that his chips were not sliced thinly enough and repeatedly sent them back to the kitchen. After accepting the returned dish several times, the chef was determined to teach the awkward customer a lesson. He delicately cut potatoes into wafer thin slices and then lightly tossed them in sizzling oil until crisp and golden. Crum’s joke backfired, however, and as a result the potato chips (or potato crisps, as British still call them) were a resounding success.

 
Chips ‘crisps’ come to England.

Potato ‘crisps’ are now one of Britain’s most popular snacks, especially with young people. They represent 60% of all the savoury snacks sold in the UK and around 8,500 million packs of crisps are sold in this country each year. However, crisps were not widely available in this country until the early part of this century. In 1913 a Mr Carter, who had come across crisps in France, decided to produce them in London.

 
In 1920, Frank Smith, who had heard about this new way of cooking potatoes, set up his own business in a North London garage where he and his wife peeled, sliced and fried the potato pieces and then put the freshly cooked snacks in open greaseproof bags. He then travelled around the neighbourhood in his pony and trap selling his new snack. Within a year demand had grown so much that Smith moved to larger premises with 12 employees and over time hand fried potato crisps were being made in over 40 of the leading seaside resorts. It soon became obvious that customers liked to add salt to the potato snack and eventually Smith added to each bag of crisps a packet of salt in a little twist of blue paper - salt ‘n shake.
Production of potato chips in Germany.
Heinz Flessner, was the first successful European manufacturer of potato chips outside Britain, when in 1951 he started the Stateside Potato Chip Company with his wife, Ella, who had made chips at home. His customers were primarily American soldiers stationed in Germany. Flessner packaged his chips in small glassine bags and hand-delivered them to US Army Post Exchanges. By 1961 he had expanded into the consumer market and had two factories running full time. It was then that he decided to invite his American colleagues to visit, and a meeting was held in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt convention was historic: it was at this meeting that Flessner, Harvey Noss (USA), David Sword (UK) and John Zweifel of Switzerland, won approval for a European regional affiliate. It also marked the first in a long series of bienniel meetings of what would eventually become the European Snack Association (ESA).