The Reign of the Chips
Today is the last day of National Chip Week.
An entire week for chips. Tortilla. Corn. Potato. Krinkled, kettle cooked, ridged, thin, salted, seasoned, mass produced.
They hardly need the recognition.
For this final day, I reduced it to one idea.
Chips
Falling
Against black
No bowl.
No picnic table.
No staged gathering.
Just gravity.
There is something amusing about declaring a reign for something that usually lives in a crinkled bag on a grocery shelf. Still, for seven days, the crown belongs to them.
“The Reign of the Chips”
Golden slices suspended for a fraction of a second before they meet the surface below. Salt catching the light. Edges crisp. Texture amplified. Slow motion turns a casual snack into something almost ceremonial.
For one week each year, chips are elevated. Today, they fall.
If your loyalty lies with tortilla, corn, potato, krinkled, kettle, or the classic thin slice, this is simply their moment.
For more photographs from my “Food From Bag To Background” series, commercial food, and much more, visit my website at https://www.secondfocus.com
Ian L. Sitren / SecondFocus
National Noodle Day
Today is National Noodle Day, and I kept it simple. Just spaghetti — no sauce, no garnish, nothing added.
Spaghetti is by far the most popular noodle in the United States. Every survey puts it well ahead of ramen, macaroni, or lo mein. It’s the one most Americans recognize immediately — a shape as common as the plates it’s served on.
Although it’s considered an Italian staple, the story begins much earlier. Records of noodles in China date back more than 4,000 years, with millet-based strands discovered at the archaeological site of Lajia. By contrast, spaghetti took form in Sicily around the 12th century, when durum wheat and early drying techniques made long, thin noodles possible.
Spaghetti’s path to American tables began with Italian immigration in the late 1800s, when new arrivals brought their cooking traditions to cities like New York and New Orleans. Its real national rise came after World War II, when returning soldiers who had served in Italy sought the same dishes at home.
A key figure in that story was Ettore “Hector” Boiardi, an Italian-born chef who began selling his spaghetti sauce in Cleveland in 1928 under the name Chef Boy-Ar-Dee. During the war, his company supplied canned pasta to the U.S. military, producing hundreds of thousands of meals each day. Afterward, his brand became a staple of postwar convenience — spaghetti and meatballs in a can, ready to heat and serve. By the 1950s, spaghetti had become a fixture of American kitchens: affordable, familiar, and easy to prepare.
This photograph is simply that — cooked spaghetti, isolated against black. Nothing more, nothing less.
View more from my Commercial Food Photography collection here: https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000WFAqDJQOgKU
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