Potato Crisps

The potato chip, as it turns out, was invented in a fit of pique at some resort about a hundred years ago. A customer had requested thinly sliced potatoes with his meal, and kept sending the potatoes back to the kitchen because they weren't sliced thin enough. When the waiter came back to the chef about the third time with this complaint, the chef--being a calm and collected sort--flipped out and decided to go overboard. He got a razor, and while many hot-headed chefs would have used the razor to cut an extra breathing hole in the customer's windpipe, he decided to instead slice the potatoes as this as was possible. He measured carefully and made his potato slices about as thin as paper, then as an afterthought fried these slices up in oil and put some salt on them. He sent them back with the waiter, only wishing he could see the customer's face when he was served potato slices that were ridiculously thin.

As it happened, the customer loved these first ever potato chips, and sent word back to the chef that every time he ate there he wanted these chips served to him as a side. Little did the chef know that while trying to get back at a surly customer, he had invented a great American delicacy. And helped do his part in making us a an obese nation!