A potato chip or crisp is a thin slice of potato, eep fried or baked until crisp. Potato chips serve as an appetizer, side dish, or snack. Commercial varieties are packaged for sale, usually in bags. The simplest chips of this kind are just cooked and salted, but manufacturers can add a wide variety of seasonings (mostly made using herbs, spices, cheese, artificial additives or MSG). Chips are an important part of the snack food market in English-speaking countries and many other Western nations.