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Saratoga Potatoes
Pare and cut into thin slices on a slaw-cutter four large potatoes (new are best), let stand in ice-cold salt water while breakfast is cooking; take a handful of the potatoes, squeeze the water from them and dry in a napkin; separate the slices and drop a handful at a time into a skillet of boiling lard, taking care that they do not strike together, stir with a fork till they are a light brown color, take out with a wire spoon, drain well and serve in an open dish.
A nineteenth-century potato chip, fried to order for breakfast. The method is sound; only the equipment names and the fat need translating.
- The hinge: dry them completelyWet slices drop the fat temperature, steam instead of crisping, and spit. Squeeze, then roll in a towel until the surface is genuinely dry before the potatoes go anywhere near the pan.
- Slaw-cutterA wooden mandoline for shredding cabbage. Any mandoline or the slicing blade of a food processor does the same work; aim for about 1/16 inch, thin enough to see light through.
- "Boiling lard"Fat does not boil at frying temperatures; the vigorous bubbling is moisture escaping from the food. The phrase means the fat is hot enough to bubble hard around the slices, roughly 350-375F. Lard is authentic and fries well; refined peanut, sunflower or vegetable oil behaves much the same.
- The ice-water soakIt draws out surface starch, which is why the slices brown evenly instead of gluing together. Half an hour is plenty; the recipe simply uses the time breakfast takes.
- Small batches"A handful at a time" is not fussiness. Crowding drops the oil temperature and the slices weld into clumps; the fork stirring exists to keep them apart in the first seconds.
- Wire spoonA spider or slotted skimmer. Drain on paper or a rack, salt while still hot so it sticks.
- YieldFour large potatoes make a generous open dish. They soften as they sit, so fry them last and serve straight from the pan.
The name comes from Saratoga Springs, New York, the fashionable racing and spa resort, where thin fried potato slices were a house specialty of the resort hotels and restaurants in the years after the Civil War; the popular story crediting their invention to a cook at Moon's Lake House is traditional rather than documented, and versions of it vary considerably. What is clear is that by the time Buckeye Cookery appeared in 1877 the term "Saratoga potatoes" or "Saratoga chips" was in use, meaning any potato sliced paper-thin and fried crisp. That the recipe is timed to cook "while breakfast is cooking" is a reminder that these were a hot side dish made fresh in a household skillet, not the bagged, shelf-stable snack the same food became after commercial packaging arrived decades later.