Celebrate this quintessentially Idaho snack food at upcoming local festival

IDAHO FALLS – One of America’s astir celebrated snack foods is being celebrated astatine an upcoming section festival.

The Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce is hosting nan first-ever Tater Tot Festival astatine Sandy Downs connected August 16 and 17, nan play earlier National Potato Day.

Leslie Grigg, 71, of Ammon, whose awesome uncles founded nan institution that invented nan tater tot, is 1 of nan organizers of nan event. He and his cousin, Steve, precocious formed nan Protect Your Tots Foundation, which raises costs for kid maltreatment prevention. The intent of nan arena is to beforehand that cause.

“We wanted to make tater tots go thing much than conscionable a beloved food, we wanted it to go an icon for kid maltreatment prevention,” Grigg tells EastIdahoNews.com.

Grigg is simply a personnel of The Exchange Club of Idaho Falls, which devotes its efforts to galore organization work projects, including kid maltreatment prevention.

Those who acquisition a summons aliases financially lend to nan arena will thief money a caller Family Justice Center, a cardinal location for nan Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault Center to process cases.

The arena will footwear disconnected astatine 6 p.m. connected Friday nighttime pinch a meal and auction. It will beryllium a Tater Tot-themed meal pinch auction items donated by section businesses.

Jacie Sites, a two-time world fiddling champion from Rigby, will supply unrecorded entertainment.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. nan pursuing day, location will beryllium a assortment of games, activities and vendors successful nan Sandy Downs arena.

“Lamb Weston foods will beryllium providing free Tater Tots,” Leslie says. “Expect to person tons of family fun.”

Holy committee utilized to make nan first Tater Tots and nan crayons that created nan first ad. | Courtesy Leslie Grigg

The commencement of nan Tater Tot

In December, Grigg told america really his uncles, Nephi and Golden Grigg, formed Ore-Ida successful Ontario, Oregon, and created a celebrated merchandise from leftover murphy shavings by moving it done holes successful a committee and heavy frying it.

RELATED | Local man’s uncles invented nan tater tot, and he wants to observe its history pinch caller festival

The original committee has since been dubbed nan holey board, which Grigg precocious acquired from nan J.R. Simplot works successful Boise. It signed a woody pinch Ore-Ida successful 2022 to go nan exclusive supplier and shaper of its products.

A female named Clora Lay Orton came up pinch nan sanction Tater Tot successful a naming title sponsored by Ore-Ida successful 1953. The Grigg brothers liked her proposal and nan sanction stuck.

Clora Lay Orton is credited pinch naming nan Tater Tot. | Courtesy Lyle Orton

She’s since passed away, but her son, Lyle, who lives successful nan Blackfoot area, shares really she entered nan contest.

“She and immoderate different ladies were connected their measurement to Ontario. They heard astir nan title and entered it. The projected names were put successful a chapeau and personification — I presume it was Nephi aliases his relative — went done each those names and picked one,” Orton says.

He isn’t judge really she came up pinch nan sanction but describes his mom arsenic an “artistic upland southerner” who was ever coming up pinch absorbing names and titles for things.

Her family moved from Mississippi to eastbound Oregon erstwhile she was little. She was raised connected respective 1000 acres betwixt La Grande and Baker, Oregon, Lyle says, and she only made it to nan eighth grade.

“She was self-taught successful conscionable astir everything,” he says.

She and each of her siblings had different names, says Orton, and Clora inherited that quirkiness from her mom.

Whether Clora was ever compensated for winning nan title is unclear.

He knew thing astir his mom’s accomplishment until he was an adult, and it still amazes him that his mom is credited pinch naming what is now 1 of America’s astir celebrated snack foods.

“Isn’t that amazing?!” Orton says. “She wrote it successful her life history and my mother was not 1 to dress up stories.”

Seventy-one years later, Americans consume astir 70 cardinal pounds of Tater Tots annually.

Grigg is excited to motorboat what he hopes will go an yearly arena that preserves nan Tater Tot’s history and image for early generations.

“I deliberation it’s a large woody that nan authorities has produced betwixt one-fourth and one-third of nan nationalist murphy harvest for arsenic agelong arsenic I’ve been alive. It boggles my mind that we haven’t celebrated nan murphy successful a wide way. It’s conscionable opening to happen,” says Grigg.

Tickets for nan meal and auction are $75 per personification aliases $500 for a array of eight. Booth abstraction is still available arsenic well. To registry aliases study more, click here.

Event flyer | Courtesy Idaho Falls Chamber