On an Angry Customer

The diner at the restaurant was livid.

He was a man used to being catered to. As a captain of industry, few people ever denied him what he wanted, and those who did usually lived to regret it. So, when his dinner at the resort restaurant wasn’t to his satisfaction, the man complained. Loudly. Repeatedly.

In the kitchen, chef George Crum could hear the man’s loud complaints. He had been working at the resort on Saratoga Lake in New York state for some years. He had grown accustomed to the whims and odd requests of the upper-class clientele that came through every summer. This particular resort, Moon’s Lake, catered to those wealthy customers and had a reputation for going above and beyond to keep them happy. So, when the server brought the plate of food back into the kitchen because the customer wasn’t happy didn’t really surprise Crum. He was used to it.

It seems that the customer was unhappy with, of all things, his fried potatoes. The meat? It was fine. The steamed vegetables? Adequate. The pate? Serviceable. But the fried potatoes? No. That’s why he was so angry. The server told the chef that the man was angry that the potatoes were not cooked enough inside and the outside was soggy. How dare the chef serve unevenly cooked potatoes to him?

Well, the complaint rubbed the chef the wrong way. Crum thought a minute. Then he had an idea.

Fast forward a few years. George Crum had saved enough money to open his own resort on the lake. He managed to lure several of Moon’s Lake clientele to his place. Soon, the likes of the Vanderbilts and the Goulds and the Hiltons were regulars there. In fact, the legend is that the customer who sent the potatoes back to the kitchen a few years earlier was indeed one of these upper class business tycoons of the day. And it was Crum’s response to that angry customer’s outburst that made his reputation as a chef.

You see, like the angry customer, Crum had something of a temper. Normally, when his food was returned, he would, of course, try to amend the situation. But there was something so petty about the man returning fried potatoes that infuriated Crum. In an effort to shut up the complaining man and also teach him something of a small lesson, Crum decided to take fresh potatoes, slice them so, so thin, and fry them in oil, so thin that the customer couldn’t eat them with a fork. He finished the dish and told the server to send them back out to the angry man.

Then, he waited for the outburst. But, it neve came. In fact, the server returned to the kitchen with a smile. The customer loved the potatoes. He had never tasted anything so delicate, so light, and so thin.

And so, because of an angry customer and almost out of spite, George Crum had invented the potato chip.