Oh, what has George Crum wrought?
Crum is the man credited, if credited is the word, with inventing
potato chips. In 1853, so the story goes, a patron dining at the
Moon Lake Lodge sent back to the kitchen his plate of thinly fried
potatoes, a popular dish at the time that was eaten with a fork.
The customer felt the potatoes weren't crunchy enough. Crum was the
chef. Legend has it that he was an irascible man. He was given,
they say, to deliberately wreaking mayhem on dishes returned to the
kitchen just to delight in the startled reactions of the diners. In
this particular instance, Crum is said to have sliced the potatoes
impossibly thin, plunged them in boiling
oil, vigorously salted
them, then sent them back to the complaining patron as a "sarcastic
reply."
The patron loved them.
And so was born the foodstuff that launched a gazillion snack
foods.
What began as a harmless prank became a culinary monster. Who could
have foreseen nacho cheese corn chips and pizzeria pretzels and
honey-dipped peanuts? Worse are the snacks masquerading as health
food. Chocolate-chip granola bars? Naturally baked potato crisps?
As I say, though, what makes this country great is that its
citizenry is free to eat any disgusting thing it wants. I just
don't understand why anyone would want to eat ketchup-flavored
potato chips.
Sure, some folks believe that the snack industry has us as hooked
on their stuff as the tobacco companies have us on theirs. But
while critics might deride the enjoyment of laboratory-synthesized,
niche-flavored, fat-inducing pseudo-foodstuffs as a sick addiction,
I prefer to think of it as the love whose name dares not be spoken.
Of course, there are those who are not so discreet. They shout the
object of our desires as if to shame it: JUNK FOOD.
Not me, though.