GEORGE CRUM (GEORGE SPECK)

~Celebrating Black History Month~

BORN: July 15, 1824

DIED: July 22, 1914

OCCUPATION: Master Chef, Businessman, Inventor, Hunter.

George Speck was born to parents Abraham Speck and Diana Tull on July 15, 1824. He grew up in upstate New York and, in the 1850s, was hired at Moon’s Lake House, a high-end restaurant that catered to wealthy Manhattan families. A regular patron of the restaurant, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, frequently forgot Speck’s given surname. This led him to ask waiters to relay various requests to “Crum,” thus giving Speck the name he is now known by.

According to popular legend, the potato chip was invented when a picky customer (Vanderbilt himself, according to some reports) repeatedly sent back an order of french fries, complaining that they were too thick. Frustrated with the customer’s demands, Crum sought revenge by slicing a batch of potatoes paper-thin, frying them to a crisp, and seasoning them with lots of salt. Surprisingly, the customer loved them. Soon enough, Crum and Moon’s Lake House became well-known for their special “Saratoga chips.”

Crum’s chips remained a local delicacy until the 1920s when a salesman and entrepreneur named Herman Lay (yes, that Lay) began traveling throughout the south and introducing potato chips to different communities. At that point, Crum’s legacy was overtaken by the mass production and distribution of potato chips on a national scale.