The secret history of the
crisp!!
It’s crunch time; Golden Wonder deep fried ‘fried its last time crisp’ featured
a tribute in our local paper, too the nation favourite savoury snack....The Golden Wander potato was introduced around 1904, according to the Royal Horticultural Society, This was the variety of spud used to make the very first ‘Golden Wander Crisp’ in 1947, although it was later usurped by a breed called Lady Rosetta, kettle
fried crisps use Jersey Royals.
Native American
chief—who was also a chef—invented the crisp in 1853.A Saratoga Springs hotel ‘Moon Lake’ served up thickly cut fries by the chief, complaints repeatedly were being voiced, fed-up with the moaning and as a joke the ‘Indian chief’ chef slithered the sliced potatoes as thinly as he could then dipping the slivers into sizzling oil. The morsels were hailed a success. The chef’s name was, perhaps appropriately, Crum. Here in England a Londoner Frank Smith established the Smith’s Potato Crisps Company Ltd in 1920.Although Briton had crisps since 1913.Mrs Smith did the peeling slicing and frying and Mr Smith packed them in waxed paper bags, with a pinch of salt in a twist of blue paper; then sold them off his hand cart, with a catchy slogan, ‘They are delicious to eat, they are cheap.’ he relaunched his business in Sydney 1932 at 1.25 p per packet...
Golden Wander Crisps were started by a former mining engineer and bakery owner William Alexander in 1947; his snacks were made after the last batch of loaves had been baked. In 17 years his crisp business grew into becoming the world’s biggest factory in Corby. The Crisp market started to see in the sixties other brand names appearing on packaging. Walkers sells 5.2billion bags in the U.K. every year, two out of every three of the nation’s children have a bag in their lunch box every day.