According to enduring culinary lore, the Native American-African chef George Crum invented the potato chip at the Moon's Lake House resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, after an elite customer repeatedly complained that his french fries were sliced too thick and soggy. In frustration, Crum sliced potatoes paper-thin, fried them until completely crisp, and doused them in heavy salt. The snack was an immediate triumph, initiating a massive commercial snack food sector that completely transformed global snack food production and packaging technology.

The crunchy, mass-produced potato chip became an ubiquitous cultural symbol for the instant gratification, high-calorie void, and commercial homogeneity of modern American middle-class life. Mid-to-late-twentieth-century poets utilized the crinkling snack bag in their verses as a sharp satirical metaphor to critique modern consumer leisure, suburban childhood complacency, and the decline of natural agrarian cooking.