Celeb Shot: Toga Chip Guy
Alan Richer, Saratoga's resident potato chip historian, tells a tall tale of potato chip lore. PLUS: a local "Kitchen Cabinet" appointee, Upstate NYC (!) merch, and can't-miss upcoming events.
I first met Alan Richer, the self-proclaimed Toga Chip Guy, back in 2018 when he tracked me down at a Saratoga Living event after I’d written an article calling into question the legitimacy of the claim that the potato chip was invented in Saratoga Springs (if this is news to you, read on). He didn’t have any beef or anything; he just wanted to give me his business card in the off chance I needed a potato chip expert to speak on the record for a future article. Unsurprisingly, I never did, but that didn’t stop Alan from finding me on Facebook and continuously pitching me stories about where his discrete passion for potato chip history led him. (I did write one story about his History Channel appearance back in 2021.) “I’ve been pretty good at capitalizing on most things,” he told me a few weeks ago over a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows at Kru Coffee. “I’ve generated my own opportunities.”
Indeed, Alan has turned his post-retirement passion project into a money-making business; he gets paid to give talks and appear on television, and recently curated an exhibit of his potato chip memorabilia at The Brookside Museum. He regularly posts to his website, togachipguy.com and blog, My View of the World Through the Prism of the Potato Chip, and gets hired by potato chip companies to write their histories. He approaches his job as a potato chip historian with both the seriousness of a lawyer (before retiring he worked as senior tax council and head of global initiatives at GE) and humor of a stand-up comedian (after retirement he took classes at the old Comedy Works in Albany), and his dedication to his craft has brought him across the country and introduced him to countless people, including industry bigwigs and the occasional celebrity.
I met with Alan, a New Jersey native, in anticipation of March 14, National Potato Chip Day (not to be confused with Pi Day), only to learn that there are as many days and weeks of potato chip recognition as there are theories about how the salty snack was invented. In a blog post entitled “It’s Chip Time,” Alan writes his solution to the confusion: “Since nobody seems to be certain when National Potato Chip Week occurs, celebrate it each and every week.”
Read on for an abridged version of my hour-long potato chip talk with the Toga Chip Guy.
Can you paraphrase the most popular Saratoga potato chip myth?
I went out to Cleveland and met this guy, Don Noss. His father started the Potato Chip Institute. His name was Harvey Noss. Harvey had been an old newspaper man and an amateur magician, and he always said, “A good story is better than the truth.” So the source [of the story] goes back to him and the Potato Chip Trade Association. There’s this whole story about the disgruntled customer coming in [to Moon’s Lake House on Saratoga Lake] and ordering French fries and steak, and complaining that the French fries were too thick and not well done enough. And George [Crum] took out his razor, made them razor thin, deep fried them and put a lot of salt on them to spite the customer.
But someone had invented it before that?
In 1817, this doctor, [William] Kitchiner, put out a cookbook in London, and he had his recipe in there for potato shavings. The first edition of it just went on auction last Saturday. I don’t know what it eneded up going for, but it got a lot of publicity. He was the first person to record anything, but that doesn’t mean that he invented it.
So who invented it?
The bottom line is that nobody really knows for sure where or when the potato chip was invented, but everybody can agree on the fact that it was popularized in Saratoga based on the fact that the very first generic name for all potato chips was the Saratoga Chip.
How do people respond when you tell them you’re a potato chip historian?
Four years ago when I turned 65, my wife’s family bought us tickets to go see Steve Martin and Martin Short at Proctors. Paul Shaffer, who used to conduct the band for David Letterman, came out to the audience and he randomly picked me to go up and do the Three Amigos dance. I was filling in for Chevy Chase. Martin Short says to me, “What do you do for a living?” So I say I’m a potato chip historian. Right away, Steve Martin goes, “I can’t believe it. We had one of you last night!” Of course he didn’t. Even when I went back to my seat, they kept cracking jokes about it. He goes, “I could see Alan going home tonight and he gets pulled over by a policeman. He’s just about to talk his way out of the ticket and the cop says, ‘What do you do for a living?’ and he says, ‘I’m a potato chip historian.’ And the guy draws his gun and says ‘Step out of the car.’”
How do you write an entire blog on potato chips?
I find that almost every story you can connect somehow. In Bennington, they have the Grandma Moses museum. Before she moved to New York, she lived in North Carolina and, to supplement her income, she used to make and sell Saratoga Chips. So I wrote a story about that. And one of the more interesting stories was Alphonse Capone was a big mobster in Chicago, and he had this couple, Eugenia and Leonard Japp, that sold him all of his nuts and candy. At the time, there were a lot of illegal casinos that were owned by the mafia on Saratoga Lake. He came to visit them and he discovered Saratoga Chips. So he goes back and gets Leonard and his wife and he says, “You’re going into the Saratoga Chip business.” There’s a lot more about that, but he was really responsible for helping migrate the chips to the midwest.
What other good stories have you come across?
I did all this research and I found out the guy who really came up with the shape of Pringles, which is a hyperbolic paraboloid, was Dr. Paul Herget, who was a very famous astronomer. He was the head of the Cincinnati Observatory, and he would walk to work and on his way to work and on the way home, there was a guy who was a tool and die guy for Procter & Gamble. They were trying to make a chip that wouldn’t break. And he told them it was based on the orbit of minor planets. So he got some stock for it, and he didn’t have computer time, so they let him use the computers at night when they weren’t being used in exchange [for helping] them do this. So this guy, Paul Herget, if you go back and look at his accomplishments—during World War II he could figure out where every German U2 submarine was, and he saved thousands of lives. He was a pioneer when the Navy started doing rockets and at the beginning of NASA. He had all these amazing accomplishments, and yet when you go into the Cincinnati Observatory, the thing that everybody cares about is Pringles.
I’m sure you have more.
The oldest potato chip company just announced that it’s going out of business. It’s called Mikesell’s in Dayton, Ohio. Do you know what Dayton’s famous for? The guy who owned the company—his grandfather started by delivering chips on bicycle, and then his bicycle broke. So he went down the street. Do you know who had a bike shop in Dayton? The Wright brothers. He was friends with the Wright brothers. So there’s history in all this stuff if you look for it. I never run out of ideas.
You mentioned this was a big year for you publicity-wise. Why is that?
Syracuse Law School wrote a huge article about me called “From Legal Field to Potato Chip Field.” And then I did this big convention in Orlando for an affiliate of AARP. They gave me—and this is hard to believe—they gave me two hours to be the keynote speaker. The interesting thing was that the whole theme of the conference was The Wizard of Oz. So my title was “What does the potato chip have to do with The Wizard of Oz? The Toga Chip Guy will lead you down the yellow brick road.”
So…What does the potato chip have to do with The Wizard of Oz?
Bert Lahr played the Cowardly Lion, and he was the first person that Herman Lay hired to say “Bet you can’t eat just one!”
Have you ever been recognized on the street?
We went on vacation in Florida in December and they were having a street fair and this guy goes “I just saw you on TV!” I’ve had kids come up and think it’s a big deal because I’m on TV. They ask me for autographs. At this AARP thing, everybody was asking me for autographs and selfies. It’s exciting. I think that keeps the passion. The fact that everybody else gets excited keeps you excited.
Why does the history of the potato chip matter?
The thing about chips is that they’re a comfort food and they’re served at things that people have a lot of nostalgic remembrances about. They just bring back a lot of memories to people, and they’re always sort of positive. I’ve always said the potato chip is more American than apple pie. All you need to do is compare the shelf space that’s dedicated to them in the local supermarket. Everybody loves the potato chip.
—Natalie
Quote of the Week
“Putting pretty things together is what I do.”
—PDT Creator Adam Foti at Friday’s press tour of the soon-to-be-opened PDT Market
Save the Date
This week, SPAC announced a brand-new event that’ll kick off the summer season on Friday, June 2. The inaugural Summer SPACtacular fundraiser will be hosted by NEWS10 ABC’s Lydia Kulbida and feature live music, a dance party on SPAC’s stage, cocktails, culinary tastings and fireworks. The event, according to SPAC’s Kristy Ventre, is going to be “a bonanza like no other.”
Buy Now!
Tickets are now on sale for Overdress to Impress, our most popular event of the year, which is returning to The Adelphi Hotel Thursday, March 23. Don’t wait until the last minute to get yours—ticket prices go up Sunday! Buy yours now.
Top Chef
Local chef-entrepreneur Dale Miller , who owns a culinary and hospitality consulting company in Malta, has been chosen for the US State Department’s Advisory Board “Kitchen Cabinet.” The Cabinet is a 10-member group that will assist with the relaunch of the Culinary Diplomatic Partnership, which, originally established by Hillary Clinton in 2012, encourages the use of food, hospitality and the dining experience for enhancing formal diplomacy, cultivation of cultural understanding and strengthening of global relationships. “It is a pinnacle of my career,” Miller said of the appointment, “and I am profoundly proud of my association with this extraordinary program.”
Back on Track
The first sign that racing season is on its way came this week—NYRA released the 2023 Saratoga Race Course stakes schedule, which will feature 19 Grade 1 races and $20.8 million in total purses, and be highlighted by the 154th edition of the Travers on August 26. See the full schedule here.
Upstate of Mind
Sweden-based clothing company H&M recently came out with an “Upstate NYC” sweatshirt that has gone viral in (actual) upstate social media circles. “What does it mean?” asks Alexandra Zissu in a recent Times Union article.
Glens Falls Brewfest Ticket Giveaway
WIN tickets to the 13th annual Glens Falls Brewfest on April 1. Two paid subscribers to Foothills Business Daily or Saratoga Living After Hours can win one ticket each to the popular event. That’s a $50 value! Winners must be 21 or older on or before April 1, 2023 to claim their prize. Contest rules here.
This Week in Saratoga Living After Hours
On Monday, we gave readers a SPAC-centric fill-in-the-blank news quiz.
And on Tuesday, we recapped what went on at the Proctors Collaborative Bash, at which the 2023-24 season schedule was announced.