Saratoga Chips: History, Legend and Where to Try Them

Saratoga chips are the potato chips that Saratoga Springs says it invented. Legend credits a cook named George Crum, who in 1853 at Moon's Lake House sliced potatoes paper-thin to spite a diner who said they were too thick. Historians say the evidence is thinner than the legend, so taste a thin chip with care and decide for yourself.

The tale is told in many versions around town. Here it is with its doubts, followed by a way to taste and rate a chip.

What is the Saratoga potato chips legend?

It is the story above, with variants. In some tellings the fussy diner is a famous railroad magnate. In others the cook is a woman in the Moon family. A newspaper in 1849 praised the restaurant's fried potatoes years before the supposed invention, which suggests that thin fried potatoes were already on the menu.

So the honest summary is that chips were fried here, they were famous here and the exact origin is uncertain.

Who was George Crum, and why do chips carry his name?

George Speck, called Crum, was a real cook of Black and Native American heritage who worked in the Saratoga area and later ran his own restaurant on the road to Malta, where "Saratoga chips" were a house specialty. That much is documented. Whether he invented the chip is the question. His name stuck to the legend because it is a good story and a memorable name.

What was Moon's Lake House?

A famous summer resort restaurant beside a lake just outside the city, popular with wealthy visitors in the nineteenth century. It served game, fish and fried potatoes, and its reputation spread. A member of the Moon family is also credited in some accounts with the invention and with selling chips in boxes, one of the first attempts to sell them beyond a single restaurant. The building is long gone, but the name survives in every retelling.

What makes a Saratoga chip different?

Thinness and crunch. The chips are sliced very thin, fried until golden and salted lightly. The best have a clean potato flavor, a snap and a bit of oil that has been drained well. Kettle-cooked and batch-fried chips are slightly harder and darker, while continuous-fry chips are lighter. Taste them side by side to hear the difference.

Compare a hot chip fresh from the fryer with a bagged one a week old, and you will understand why the town cares.

Where can you try Saratoga chips today?

In grocery stores, specialty shops and at restaurants that serve them as a starter. Chips are one of the easiest foods in the city to find. Ask a server whether the chips are made in the kitchen. A basket of warm chips with a dip is the nearest thing to the nineteenth-century original.

For the wider season, the racing season restaurants guide tells you how to plan a meal around the chips.

Which Saratoga Springs snacks go with chips?

Pretzels, cheese, cider donuts in the fall, ice cream in the summer and anything served on a toothpick at a tavern. The city has a long snacking tradition, from spring-water sippers in the old spa days to track fans with a paper cone. A flight of salty snacks is a pleasant lunch, but go easy on the salt if you are heading to the races.

How can you taste the difference between chips?

Line up three kinds on a plate: a thin chip from a bag, a thick kettle chip and a warm one from a kitchen. Taste with water between each. Listen for the snap, then notice the flavor of the potato and the salt. A great chip should not taste of oil. If it does, the fat was too cool or the slices were too wet.

Ask a server how the chips are cut and cooked. A kitchen that slices by hand and fries to order has an advantage that no factory can match, though a good factory chip can still beat a tired restaurant one. Write down what you taste before you read the label.

How do you rate a chip?

The Mosey app lets you rate any place, and you can name the dish. Rate the restaurant or shop, then add "thin chips" as a dish with its own stars. Write what you tasted: "thin, crisp, a little greasy, good salt". If you try several, compare them in a list called Chips of Saratoga. Tag the friends who shared the basket, and they can add their own rating of the same snack.

If you rate three places of a kind, the app offers to turn them into a list, and you can untick any you do not want.

Where next in Saratoga Springs?

Read the Broadway and Caroline Street guide to see where to sit with a basket, or the US food guides for other foods with a disputed origin.

This is one of many New York guides, and the Food in New York State page lists them all by town.

After the last crunch, open the Mosey app, rate the chips you liked most and share the list with the friend who always says they invented the thin chip.