Slowly, please.
Imagine a tasty plate of chips, fried in hot oil until golden-brown, topped with a little salt and served with ketchup. Think a hot jacket potato, filled with butter and cheese. Imagine a packet of delicious crisps that leave the flavour on your fingers to be licked off when you have finished. We seem to love potatoes however they are cooked. But have you ever asked yourself where they came from? (And I don't mean the supermarket!)
It all started in Peru. There, they grew potatoes over 2,000 years ago. They weren't like the ones we know today. The original potatoes were smaller and tasted bitter. The first Europeans to try the potato were the Spanish. In 1537, Spanish explorers discovered people eating what they called papas. They brought this strange vegetable back to Spain in the 1550s.
People generally didn't like the potato. Lots of other vegetables were introduced into Europe at the same time, like tomatoes and sweet potatoes, and people preferred those to the unattractive potatoes.
Very slowly, they spread through Europe. There is a story that King Louis XVI of France liked the potato and planted them in the royal gardens. Ordinary people stole them and planted them in their own gardens.
So, what about chips? Well, the Belgians claim that they invented fried potatoes, although nobody really knows for sure. The first mention of "chips" in England is by the writer Charles Dickens in 1859. He mentions "chips of potato" fried in oil in one of his books. The Americans call them "French fries" because soldiers from America went to France during the First World War and loved the dish. Now, the Americans eat over twenty million tonnes of chips a year.
Crisps are an American invention, although they call them "chips" (don't get confused!). Everybody agrees that a Native-American chef, George Crum, made the first chips in 1853. One day, a difficult customer wanted fried potatoes, sliced thinly. When they arrived, he said they weren't thin enough. He kept sending them back to be cooked again. In the end, Crum got annoyed and sliced the potato as thinly as he could and fried it, then added lots of salt. The dish was an immediate success.
So now you know. Next time you are in your favourite fast food place eating chips whit your friends, amaze them with your potato knowledge! Who knows? They might even share their chips with you.
