One

By Mimi Sheraton

"Please pass the chips." Time was when that request led to a predictable result: a crackling treat of smooth, fragile, bitingly salty potato chips. No longer. Now staggering possibilities abound: chips sliced from white or sweet potatoes that could be thick or thin, ridged or smooth, and with or without salt and preservatives. They might be natural in flavor or seasoned with Cajun, Italian or barbecue spices, vinegar, jalapeno peppers, cheese alone or with bacon, sour cream (or yogurt) with onion (or chives). There is also a choice of half a dozen or so oils for frying, which can be done in mass- produced, factory-size quantities (approximately 2,500 lbs. an hour in the old-fashioned but newly popular kettle batches (500 lbs. an hour), which cook a good deal more slowly and have a harder, crunchier finish.

"The new potato-chip varieties are like the changes made in bread," says Richard Duchesneau, president of Tri-Sum Potato Chip, which has operated in Leominster, Mass., since 1908. "People got tired of standard white, and now when you walk down the supermarket aisle, you'll find wheat, oat berry, cracked wheat and more. It's the same with chips." Though they profess an interest in foods that are low in salt and calories, Americans last year spent an estimated $3.3 billion dollars (an increase of 75% since 1980) on deep- fried chips, generally strewn with salt. The market is dominated by Pepsico's Frito-Lay, Borden's Wise and Procter & Gamble's Pringle's, but around the country the real aficionados prize the local brands.

"Regionality is very important," acknowledges James Green, a vice president of N.S. Khalsa, the Oregon producer of the decent if not distinctive Kettle Chips. "Oregonians like the fact that they are eating chips made from potatoes grown in this state." In Pennsylvania Dutch country, said to be the capital of potato-chip production, Michael Rice, president of Utz Quality Foods, uses cottonseed oil to fry his delicately satisfying line of smooth and ridged chips. But three years ago he introduced a fried-in-lard adaptation of the original potato chip developed by his grandparents in 1921. "Grandma Utz's chips do well in Pennsylvania," Rice reports, "but not in Baltimore or Washington."

Potato-chip fans in Louisiana opt for the fiery seasonings in Zapp's delectable Cajun Craw-Tators, golden brown, crisply curled wafers that are burnished with a savory and peppery spice blend, or the even more tantalizing incendiary jalapeno chips, hot enough to drive the muncher straight to a can of cold Dixie beer. Judging by the high price of Maui chips (as much as $7.59 for a 7-oz. bag), Hawaiians like heavy grease -- as do certain Angelenos. Jurgensen's, a high-toned Southern California grocery, buys all it can get of these dark, oily chips. The steep price does not discourage devotees like Andrea Sharp, a Los Angeles waitress. "I'm not sure what it is, but every time I eat them, I think of Hawaii," she says. Maui has inspired knockoffs, and some of the imitations, such as the parchment-crisp Laura Scudder's, made in California, and the rustic Trader Joe's Habeas Crispus, from Oregon, beat out the original.

To capitalize on the homemade appeal, the major producers have developed spin-off brands. Frito-Lay is doing research on a kettle-cooked chip. Wise now offers New York Deli chips along the Eastern Seaboard and as far west as Dallas, packed in a passionate purple bag that bears no hint of Borden or Wise. With New York Deli, Wise is mining the regional pride and expectations New Yorkers have about deli products being made to order, according to Vice President Chris Abernathy. This is accomplished by using Wise fryers at different temperatures and for different periods of time. The result is a chip with a pleasant potato flavor and nutty overtones.

Similarly, New Englanders who cherish the lingeringly greasy Cape Cod chips, old-fashioned and hand cooked in Hyannis, will find no clue on the package that the company now belongs to Anheuser-Busch. Even Pringle's, the faux chips formed of dehydrated potatoes, now comes in a variety of flavors designed to add character. That goal has not quite been realized, although sales have risen 16% a year since 1981.

Some potato-chip addicts are brand loyal, notably the lovers of the greaseless and quintessentially potatoey Charles Chips, a Pennsylvania Dutch winner that has been going strong for 45 years and that proved best among the 65 varieties tasted for this report. The jalapeno Charles Chips led all other seasoned types. For decades Charles Chips were delivered to homes in 40 states, always packed in the company's trademark mustard-colored cans; now they are sold in supermarkets in typical air-cushioned bags. In Ohio, the loyalty lines are drawn between chips made by two old local outfits: the good, blond wafers of Mike-sell's, produced in Dayton, and the more pallid, "marcelled" Ballreich product, from Tiffin.

A stroll down a supermarket aisle would surely beguile George Crum, the chef at Moon's Lake House in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., who in 1853 is said to have devised "Saratoga chips" to placate a cantankerous customer who complained that the fried potatoes were too thick. But if Crum were to taste chocolate-coated chips, a salt-sweet, cloying aberration priced from $6 to $18 per lb. (the latter from Yuppie Gourmet in Racine, Wis.), he might be sorry he started the whole thing. As a good chef, he would be the first to recognize that even the best idea can be taken too far.

With reporting by Janice M. Horowitz/New York and Liz Kanter/Los Angeles