George "Speck" Crum -- USA

George "Speck" Crum, the son of the son of a Native American mother and African American father, was the cook at Moon's Lake House, a resort at the south end of the lake in Saratoga Springs, New York USA, he is widely credited as the inventor of potato chips (crisps).

In his early career he worked as a trapper and a mountain guide in the Adirondacks, by 1853 Crum was working as a chef at the Moon Lake Lodge, an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs, New York.  On 24 August 1853, a customer complained that Crum's french fries were "too thick", the angry cook frustrated by this remark, decided to serve the total opposite to the clients complaint. He sliced the potatoes paper-thin, over fried them to a crisp, and seasoned them with an excess of salt.  When the crisps were prepared he gave them to the customer, expecting him to be dissatisfied.  However, the customer enjoyed them, the chips became popular, and were called "Saratoga chips" or "potato crunches". 

According to urban legend, the hard-to-please customer in Saratoga Springs was railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.  An early source for the story identifies Vanderbilt as a regular customer, but not as the unintentional co-originator of the famous snack.  Although Crum never protected his recipe (and some accounts differ as to whether he invented it), what's certain is the food, which he dubbed "Saratoga Chips," began appearing on the Moon Lake Lodge menu from that day forward as a specialty of the house. 

By 1860, having profited from the success of his new invention, Crum had saved up enough money to open his own establishment. "Crum's House," on Malta Avenue in Saratoga Lake, featuring potato chips in baskets on every table.  The restaurant was successful for 30 years, serving several rich and famous guests of Saratoga County.  Crum closed the establishment in 1890, and died in 1914 aged 86, they remained a local delicacy until the Prohibition era. An enterprising salesman named Herman Lay popularised the product throughout the Southeast United States.