[8] A legend associates the creation of potato chips with Saratoga Springs, New York, decades later than the first recorded recipe.

[9] By the late nineteenth century, a popular version of the story attributed the dish to George Crum, a cook[10][11] at Moon's Lake House who was trying to appease an unhappy customer on August 24, 1853.

A version of this story was popularized in a 1973 national advertising campaign by St. Regis Paper Company which manufactured packaging for chips, claiming that Crum's customer was Cornelius Vanderbilt.

After some trial and error, in 1954, Joe "Spud" Murphy, the owner of the Irish crisps company Tayto, and his employee Seamus Burke, produced the world's first seasoned chips: cheese & onion.

In the 1920s, Laura Scudder,[32][33][34] an entrepreneur in Monterey Park, California, started having her workers take home sheets of wax paper to iron into the form of bags, which were filled with chips at her factory the next day.

Today, chips are packaged in plastic bags, with nitrogen gas blown in prior to sealing to lengthen shelf life, and provide protection against crushing.

[35][36][37][38] Chips were long made in a batch process, where the potato slices are rinsed with cold water to release starch,[39] fried at a low temperature of 300 °F (150 °C),[40] and continuously raked to prevent them from sticking together.

[46] In Australia, some parts of South Africa, New Zealand, India, and the West Indies, especially in Barbados, both forms of potato product are simply known as "chips", as are the larger "home-style" variety.

[47] However, researchers at Queen Mary University of London in 2004 have noted that a small "bag of ready-salted crisps" contains less salt than a serving of many breakfast cereals, including "every brand of cornflakes on sale in the UK".

[48] Some potato chip companies have responded to the long-standing concerns by investing in research and development to modify existing recipes and create health-conscious products.

[50] In August 2008, California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced a settlement with Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods, and Lance Inc., the makers of Cape Cod Potato Chips, for violating the state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act.

The state had alleged in 2005 that potato chips from these companies failed to document that they contained high levels of acrylamide, which is listed by California since the 1990s as a carcinogen.

[55] In Colombia, lemon, chicken, chorizo, and sirloin steak with mushroom sauce flavored potato chips are sold.

[56] In the United Kingdom, Walkers makes crisps with popular flavours as Prawn Cocktail, Beef and Onion, Roast Chicken, Smoky Bacon, Worcester Sauce, Pickled Onion, and Tomato Ketchup,[57][58] and exotic flavors Thai sweet chili, roast pork and creamy mustard sauce, chicken with Italian herbs, Spicy Sriracha, BBQ Pulled Pork, sea salt and cider vinegar, spicy and aromatic curry, turkey and bacon, caramelized onion and sweet balsamic vinegar, Stilton and cranberry.

Lay's offers crab-flavored and no-cream green onion flavored chips as ones made uniquely for Russian market.

In Japan, flavors include norishio (nori and salt), consommé, wasabi, soy sauce and butter, garlic, plum, barbecue, pizza, mayonnaise, and black pepper.

[63] In Hong Kong, the two prominent potato chips are the spicy "Ethnican" variety by Calbee,[64] and barbecue by Jack 'n Jill.

In 2014, Japan's Calbee and Indonesia's Wings Food formed Calbeewings, a joint venture and marketed Potabee potato chips offering two flavors: beef BBQ and grilled seaweed.

[67] In 2018 Chitato launched three unusual flavors: beef rendang, fried crab golden egg yolk, and mango sticky rice.

This makes a product that is uniform in size and shape, which allows them to be stacked and packaged in rigid cardboard or plastic canisters.

A larger variant (about 1 cm thick) made with dehydrated potatoes is marketed as Andy Capp's Pub Fries, using the theme of a long-running British comic strip, which are baked and sold in a variety of flavors.

Walkers make a similar product (using the Smiths brand) called "Chipsticks" which are sold in ready-salted and salt and vinegar flavors.

[70] Sweet potato chips are eaten in Korea, New Zealand, and Japan; parsnip, beetroot, and carrot crisps are available in the United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and Australia, a new variety of Pringles made from rice has been released and marketed as lower in fat than its potato counterparts.