They blink like coins

They blink like coins

If the name "potato chips" carries weight on every continent, this is because it can be put on the list of American culinary top‑hits. The potato chip was allegedly invented in 1853 in Saratoga Springs, a fashionable watering‑place in the State of New York. To take revenge on a difficult customer who repeatedly complained about his thick fried potatoes, the young cook George Crum defiantly prepared a handful of superthin potato slices, plunged them into the deep‑fryer and served them at Cornelius Vanderbilt's table.



The latter, who was nicknamed "Commodore" because he made a fortune in the shipping business, was game enough to savour this pleasantry. Arranged around a tender roast, they seem to have come out of the King's privy purse. As a matter of fact, because they blink like coins, the French have given them the resounding name of "pommes de terre en liards*".

When you spot a packet of chips, you can't resist the urge to crunch its contents form the biggest crisp to the last tiny crumb. Have you ever thought of making your own chips? Well, what you should fear most is the release of starch which takes place when you cut your potatoes into round slices. Therefore you must rinse the potato slices in abundant amounts of cold water and dry them thoroughly. Next, you plunge them into the hot frying fat while shaking the basket so that they can't stick to each other. At the same time you will have to watch out for the Maillard reaction** which causes the golden colour of the chips to change into an objectionable brownish hue.

Are you one of those people who staunchly throw away their burnt joint of roast and start all over again? Or would you rather rely on the professionals? In their hands, the scraped and washed potatoes are sliced into very smooth round segments of equal size. In order to prevent the slices from sticking to each other during cooking, the potato starch is eliminated by introducing a countercurrent of water, a blanching method for reducing sugars which, among other bad effects, caramelize at high temperature. Cooking is done in a continuous oven. In short, a cooking method which is altogether traditional if it wasn't for the fact that a capacity of one and a half tons of chips an hour is sometimes reached.

Strained off and carefully packaged so that they won't crush, the chips are ready to travel to the remotest corners of the earth.