National Potato Chip Day in the Snack Belt of Pennsylvania: Birthday Cake, Non-Newtonian fluids and Quicksand
It’s a dark and stormy night at Girl Scout camp - I think probably Camp Indian Run on Fairview Road in Wallace Township. Between claps of thunder and flashes of lightening, an eerie clanking is coming from the direction of our food stuffs. We are all afraid to go out and see what is going on. In the bright morning light, we find that raccoons have rolled our Charles Chip cans down the hill to the creek and pried them open. Soggy potato chips are smacking against the rocks in the creek and you can see the weird almost human paw prints of the raccoons in the mud on the bank. It is a very very sad day in the woods.
Flash forward fifty years, and it’s National Potato Chip day here in the Snack Belt of Pennsylvania. Some Charles Chip cans must have survived raccoon attacks because a quick search on Ebay shows one recently sold for almost twenty bucks. And here, from Hershey, PA east to Philly, the variety of sweet and salty snacks produced is staggering. Lucky for us, the snack business is apparently recession proof, as most area companies involved in producing potato chips, pretzels and other snack foods posted a profit last year, and some reportedly could not keep up with the demand during our January and February storms.You can get information about tours through Herr’s, Utz fascinating factories at their websites, or check Sharon Hermes Silverman’s book Pennsylvania Snacks: A Guide to Food and Factory Tours found on Amazon. The Herr’s plant is having a birthday celebration on March 15 with cake for everyone. By the way, the Herr’s mascot is Chipper and the Wise Owl’s name was Peppy.
According to the Official Potato Chip History Time Line chips were invented by a Native American Chef named George Crum in 1863 in Saratogo Springs, New York. They were a cheeky response to a customer complaint about the thickness of George’s fried potatoes, but instead of irking the complainer, they were such a hit that they became a staple of the restaurant, and later featured at George’s own eatery. In 1921, both Wise and Utz started producing chips in Pennsylvania, probably because a hand cranked, easy to operate potato cutter developed in 1920 made big quantities of chips easier to make.
Say hello to Mr. Potato Head, invented in 1949 and the first toy advertised on TV. Although Wikipedia states that the toy set consisted of a plastic potato with push in features, I only remember using a real potato.
I love potato chips because they are not only tasty and salty, but because the satisfying crunch of biting and chewing them seems to relieve stress. I can’t imagine certain sandwiches - small italian hoagie, tuna sandwich, or grilled cheese and tomato soup without them.
If you want to make them at home, nothing could be simpler:
Slice potatoes VERY THIN (channel George Crum) with a paring knife, a mandolin, or an old fashioned kraut cutter. Soak slices for an hour or so in cold water, to remove the starch, for a crisper chip. Drain and Dry carefully - you don’t want to introduce moisture into the hot oil! Heat oil to aprox. 390 degrees and fry just a few at a time. They will cook really fast and introducing too many at once lowers the temperature of the oil and chips will absorb more grease. When crispy and brown to your taste, drain on towels, either paper or well washed cotton. Store in a metal tin if you have one - they will last longer if they are not exposed to light or air. But who are we kidding? You are going to eat them all right away! If you are not a hot oil type you can use this recipe for Microwave Chips. I did not try them, because basically, I like the snap crackle pop of frying, but let me know how these work for you.
If you are in an experimenting sort of a mood, amaze your children and your friends with some FUN SCIENCE. Real quick, potato starch is a polymer. Polymers have really big molecules. When combined with water, potato starch makes a half liquic, half solid called a Non-Newtonian Fluid. Quicksand is a non-newtonian fluid, just FYI. See, if you strike it hard, it will resist the pressure of the strike and remain solid - if you had a pool filled with it, you could walk across it. But if you touch it lightly, those same molecules separate into a liquid and will allow penetration. Here is a really cool video (in Spanish, but it doesn’t matter, you will understand what is happening) that illustrates this. And if you are into potato crafts or you are wondering what you would do for plastic if the economy falls apart and we are living out of our gardens, this video teaches you how to make potato plastic AND explains why it works. Sort of a creepy voice, but easy to follow. There are a few products on the market now that are using this eco-friendly solution.
Studies show that people tend to eat sweet things while they work on their computers and choose salty when watching TV. I say work on your computer and watch TV and eat chocolate covered potato chips!
