National Cheese Doodle / Cheez Doodle Day & The History Of Cheez Doodles
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Some brands are regional. Some start out that way and become so popular they get national distribution. Such is the case with Cheez Doodles from East Coast manufacturer King Kone (now Wise), vs. Cheetos from Dallas-based Frito-Lay. Both are puffed, cheese-flavored cornmeal snacks. Both began as regional brands, and became national powerhouses. March 5th is National Cheese Doodle Day. You’ll find online that some small sites claim March 5th is National Cheetos Day, but it isn’t. Even though they are more than 15 years older than Cheez Doodles, and a global brand versus a regional brand like Cheez Doodles, Cheetos has yet to establish its own holiday. What’s up with that, Cheetos? Below: > The history of Cheez Doodles. Elsewhere on The Nibble: > The year’s 90 snack holidays. > The year’s 30 cheese holidays. Cheese puffs, cheese curls, cheese balls and cheesy puffs are all names for a puffed corn snack, coated with a mixture of cheese or cheese-flavored powders. They are manufactured by extruding heated corn dough through a die that forms a particular shape. Fans eat them from the bag, from a bowl, or for very neat people, they’re shaken onto a plate and serve with a napkin to avoid “orange fingers” from the orange Cheddar cheese. Cheez Doodles superfans have used them as an ingredient in other foods, notably crushing them as a substitute for breadcrumbs. See some uses in the next section. The Cheez Doodles brand was originally developed and manufactured by King Kone Corporation of the Bronx. The company was founded by cousins Harry Tatosian and Robert J. Yohai, originally a manufacturer of food machinery. Around 1920, they decided to manufacture foods instead of just selling the machinery. Their first food product, in 1921, was Old London Ice Cream Cones. Old London Melba Toast followed. In the 1950s, the company launched Dipsy Doodles corn chips, extruding cornmeal into corn chips. When the company was seeking to produce a new salty snack, Robert’s son Morrie Yohai and his colleagues discovered they could alter the Dipsy Doodles machine. They configured it to process cornmeal mixed with powdered Cheddar cheese into a long, tubular shape. Using a high-speed blade, they cut the tube into three-inch-long pieces. Voilà: Cheez Doodles, the follow-up to Dipsy Doodles. To provide a positive angle regarding the health concerns of snacking, the pieces were baked instead of fried. The melt-in-your-mouth, very cheesy Cheez Doodles became the leading cheese puff snack on the East Coast. In 1960, King Cone Corporation was renamed as Old London Foods. In 1965, the company was bought by Borden, which made Cracker Jack and Drake’s cakes. It is part of Borden’s Wise Snacks division. Other major U.S. brands include Cheetos, Herr’s Cheese Curls, and Utz Cheese Curls. Beyond snacking from the bag or bowl, we found these 10 additional uses for Cheez Doodles that include Cheez Doodle Pie, Cheez Doodle macarons (photo #7), Cheez Doodle Snickerdoodles, chocolate-dipped Cheez Doodles, Peanut Butter & Cheez Doodle Sandwich. This article has similar ideas for Cheetos: top the cheese on a cheeseburger or grilled cheese sandwich, Cheetos nachos (instead of tortilla chips), mac and Cheetos and Cheetos sushi (photo #5). We’ve even seen Cheetos Marshmallow Krispie Treats. But for more conventional applications: Cheetos were invented in 1948 by Charles Elmer Doolin, who created Fritos corn chips in Dallas, in 1932. The snack sold briskly, but Doolin did not have the capacity to produce and distribute the snacks nationwide. In order to expand, he subsequently partnered with potato chip producer Herman W. Lay to market and distribute Cheetos. The success of Cheetos prompted Doolin and Lay to merge their two companies in 1961, forming Frito-Lay Inc. (In the never-ending cycle of mergers and acquisitions, Frito-Lay merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company in 1965 to form PepsiCo.) Now a global brand, Cheetos generated some $4 billion in sales last year. |
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 [7] Cheez Doodle Macarons. Here’s the recipe (photo A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures). CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM. |
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