Cheese puffs

Cheese puffs
Cheese puffs in a bowl
Alternative names Cheese curls, cheese balls, cheesy puffs, cheese poofs, cheesy poofs, corn curls, corn cheese
Type Snack food
Place of origin United States
Main ingredients Puffed corn, flavoring

Cheese puffs, cheese curls, cheese balls, cheesy puffs, corn curls, or corn cheese are 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 the particular shape. They may be ball-shaped, curly ("cheese curls"), straight, or irregularly shaped. Puffcorn is a similar food, without cheese flavoring.

Common brands of cheese puffs
Brand Manufacturer Country Year
Pirate's Booty B&G Foods U.S. 1987
Cheetos Frito-Lay U.S. 1948
Cheez Doodles Wise Foods Northeastern U.S., Scandinavia 1958
CheeWees Elmer's Fine Foods New Orleans, South Central U.S. 1936
Cheezies W.T. Hawkins Ltd Canada 1948
NikNaks Simba Chips South Africa 1972
Twisties The Smith's Snackfood Company Australia
Kurkure Pepsico India India
Utz Utz Quality Foods, Inc. U.S.
Wotsits Walkers U.K. 1970
Curl Meiji Japan
Pofæk Minoo Industrial Group Iran
Chee.Toz Dina Food Group Iran
Jax Bachman (Utz) U.S. 1962[1]

History

Cheese puffs were invented independently by two companies in the United States during the 1930s. According to one account, Edward Wilson noticed strings of puffed corn oozing from flaking machines in the mid 1930s at the Flakall Corporation of Beloit, Wisconsin, a producer of flaked, partially cooked animal feed. He experimented and developed it into a snack.[2] Clarence J. Schwebke applied for an improved extruder patent in 1939[3] and the product, named Korn Kurls, was commercialized in 1946 by the Adams Corporation, formed by one of the founders of Flakall and his sons.[4] Adams was later bought by Beatrice Foods.

Another version was created by the Elmer Candy Corporation of New Orleans, Louisiana in 1936. The sales manager Morel M. Elmer, Sr., held a contest to name the new product "CheeWees". The trademark was lost when the candy company was sold in 1963, but the family's Elmer's Fine Foods continued to make the snack and repurchased the name in 1993.

A fictitious brand of cheese puffs called "Cheesy Poofs" has appeared periodically in the animated television series South Park. The Frito-Lay company produced a limited, promotional run of the snack in August 2011.[5]

A fictitious brand name, "Cheezy Dibbles", is a running joke in the 2014 film Penguins of Madagascar.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "History - Savor Street Foods, Inc". Savor Street Foods, Inc. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  2. ↑ Atlas Obscura: A Brief History of the Cheese Curl Retrieved May 26, 2018
  3. ↑ U.S. Patent 2,295,868
  4. ↑ Burtea, O (2001). "Snack Foods from Formers and High-Shear Extruders". In Lusas EW; Rooney LW. Snack Foods Processing. p. 287. ISBN 1-56676-932-9.
  5. ↑ Stuart Elliott (14 July 2011). "Celebrating 'South Park' by Bringing It to Life". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  6. ↑ "Cheesy Dibbles – the food for super spies". Coyote Productions Blog. October 11, 2014.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.