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Published June 11, 2006, in the Albany Times Union By Stacey Morris CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. – It was 1975 and my parents had a plan that included the following: four children, an outsized rented Winnebago, a stack of maps and three states in which to tour during our weeklong spring break from school. An ambitious undertaking to say the least, but that year my father was seized with a grand agenda: to take his children on an historical odyssey through the Northeast that would culminate in the visitation of Gettysburg. Sidetracked for a day by mechanical glitches, our clan eventually reached Gettysburg, and it was indeed a living historical wonder. But most memorable for me was what happened afterward on a visit to see our Aunt Alice, who lived 20 minutes away in a town called Chambersburg. Once inside the town’s quaint and quiet confines, we pulled into a supermarket to stock up on supplies. It was in the potato chip aisle that my perception of possibility changed forever. Both sides of the aisle were filled with bags and bags of potato chips in silver, blue, green, gold, black, white and yellow bags bearing names of brands I’d never seen. So we did what any group of salt lovers worth their salt would do: load the cart with as many edible souvenirs as we could comfortably fit into the RV. Somewhere between Chambersburg and upstate New York, we narrowed the cache down to a single favorite – a crispy white potato chip called Gibble’s. Over the years, my family’s love affair with Gibbles was perpetuated whenever my father passed through Chambersburg on business. For a few glorious years, they were actually available at area Grand Unions, but aside from making the six-hour drive to Chambersburg, we had to resort to ordering Gibble’s by mail. Not that a visit to Chambersburg is such a bad idea. Potato Chip Heaven I recently discovered that a visit to Southern Pennsylvania is the perfect three-day weekend, especially if you have an appreciation for good old-fashioned comfort food. The rolling hills and farmland of the Cumberland Valley have become a cornucopia of potato chip purveyors candy makers, pretzel bakers, and mom-and-pop restaurants. Or, as I like to call the area - the Napa Valley of Potato Chips. “This area’s been called the snack capital of the world,” said Bob King, snack food sales manager at Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe, the company that makes Gibble’s. “There are 13 to 15 different snack companies from the region that have snacks on the supermarket shelves here.” King attributes the snack explosion to the Pennsylvania Dutch culture that pervades Southern Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Dutch, as they’re known, aren’t really Dutch at all, but immigrants from Switzerland, Germany, Eastern France and other parts of Europe where German was spoken before 1800, according to the Web site midatlanticrootsweb.com. They settled the Southern Pennsylvania region during the 18th and 19th centuries. The term Dutch likely originated from Deutsch, meaning German. What began with German settlers making hard and soft pretzels has fanned out into a fleet of snack companies that make hard pretzels of all shapes and sizes, cheese puffs, flavored popcorn and potato chips. Gibble’s, Snyder’s of Hanover, Kay & Ray’s, Herr, Utz, Tom & Sturgis, Uncle Henry’s and Middleswarth are just some of the brands made in the region. But I admit to a certain bias for the flavor of Gibble’s. The L-Word The reason lies in a much-maligned four-letter word that French and Southern cooks have long applauded for its inimitable flavor: lard. The animal fat known for making the flakiest piecrusts and crispiest fried chicken also makes the best potato chips. “Vegetable oil isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it’s man-made. At a certain point in the production process it looks like sludge,” said King. “Lard is a natural animal product. It can’t really hurt you. And King’s not alone in his sentiment. In 2005, The New York Times ran an Op-Ed on the comeback of lard as the “great misunderstood fat.” The piece reviewed the industrial (and flavorless) origins of vegetable shortening and hydrogenated oils and went on to explain that lard has half the saturated fat level of palm kernel oil, and an impressive 45 percent level of monounsaturated fat, compared with butter’s 23 percent. “So the good and the bad fat kind of balance each other out,” said King. “Our theory is, this isn’t health food, it’s fun food. Potato chips aren’t something you’re going to be eating all the time, so it may as well taste really good.” The person to be thanked for all this is the late Ray Gibble, who started making potato chips at home in the 1950s so his son Darrel would have an after-school job. “They were cooked in lard and stirred in a kettle,” remembered his daughter, Vernice Eshleman. “Then put in waxed paper bags and stapled shut.” Gibble began selling them at farmers markets and their popularity grew exponentially. “Eventually, a factory was built on the property where our house once was,” she said. “It’s still used today by Martin’s.” Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe, now manufactures the chips as well as their original product, those golden-hued potato rolls you’ve probably seen on your supermarket shelves. Comfort Food Central Just up the road from the potato chip factory is another reason to visit Chambersburg - Mrs. Gibble’s Restaurant and Candies. Surrounded by green farm fields, the restaurant named for Ray’s wife, Mary Rhoda Meyers Gibble, is the embodiment of grandmotherly home cooking. The menu is a veritable Who’s Who of comfort food: fried chicken, sautéed chicken livers, pork tenderloin, grilled sugar-cured ham, barbecued pork ribs, roast turkey with stuffing, Angus steak and crab cakes (the Maryland border is only a few minutes away). The restaurant is now run by Eshleman (Mrs. Gibble’s daughter), her son Rodney, and his wife Kim. When Vernice and her late mother bought the restaurant from a previous owner in 1976, they decided to incorporate family style servings of side dishes like mashed potatoes and peas. “It’s Pennsylvania Dutch style,” said Vernice. “With free refills.” Who, aside from Richard Simmons, would argue with that philosophy? Mrs. Gibble’s is fairly off the beaten path, but Kim said when out-of-towners meander in on their travels, they’re smitten for life. “We have tourists return year after year,” she said. “And our mailing list has people from as far away as Texas and California on it.” And the service is as friendly as the prices. A four-piece fried chicken dinner with free refills of mashed potatoes, gravy and a vegetable is $10.75. While Kim keeps busy supervising the kitchen and wait staff, Vernice is often found next door in the Candy Store, making fragrant chocolates of all varieties, including her knee-weakening Peanut Butter Meltaways, and homemade pies. “You’ve got to try my Shoo-Fly Pie,” she tells a first-time visitor. “It’s a Pennsylvania specialty.” All she’ll reveal about her recipe is that it’s gooey and has lots of molasses. But Mrs. Gibble’s is only the tip of the chocolate-dipped iceberg. Chambersburg is also home to the luxurious Olympia Candy Kitchen (known for its handmade chocolates and chocolate-covered marshmallows) and less than an hour to the north off of I-81 is Hershey – a weekend getaway unto itself. In nearby Lancaster County, the heart of Amish Country, there’s even a Sweet and Salty Trail for food-lovers to follow that features snack factory tours, candy makers and a candy museum. And for potato chip lovers, it’s as simple as walking into any supermarket in the region. Just be prepared to be overwhelmed by the choices. Of course, all that variety tends to spoil those who are used to it. “We get a lot of mail order requests from people who moved from the area, or those who have visited,” said King.
History Tour In order to avoid indigestion, it’s best to intersperse stops along the food trail with other endeavors, and there’s no shortage of Civil War-era history. Gettysburg is a 20-minute drive east on Route 30, and Chambersburg itself has its own bona fide history, starting with Frontier era. The center of town burned to the ground in 1864 during the Civil War. Chambersburg is also where John Brown planned the raid on Harper’s Ferry. The John Brown House, a boarding house that sat near the Cumberland Valley Railroad, is now an historical site open to the public. The Chambersburg Heritage Center located in a century-old marble former bank in downtown’s Memorial Square, serves as an interpretive center, with exhibits on frontier history, architecture, the Underground Railroad, Civil War, and transportation history. So go ahead, plan a pilgrimage to Southern Pennsylvania. Summer’s here and there’s no better time. Gas prices being what they are, you probably won’t want to rent an RV, but whichever mode of transportation you choose, leave plenty of extra room for the Gibble’s.
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