Cheez Doodles are a cheese puff produced by Wise Foods. Originally developed and manufactured in 1964 by

King Kone Corp. Old London Foods, a subsidiary of B&G Foods, is a company best known for its Melba toast products. Originally based in the Bronx and called the King Kone Corporation, the company changed its name to Old London Foods in May 1960 to match their ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, it became the prevalent cheese puff snack on the East Coast.

Description

Cheez Doodles are a cheese-flavored baked cheese puff made of

extruded Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-sectional profile by pushing material through a die of the desired cross-section. Its two main advantages over other manufacturing processes are its ability to create very complex c ...

cornmeal Cornmeal is a meal (coarse flour) or a cell membrane ground from dried corn. It is a common staple food, and is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies, but not as fine as wheat flour can be.Herbst, Sharon, ''Food Lover's Companion'', ...

and are similar to Frito-Lay's Cheetos and Herr Foods Cheese Curls. The snack was created by

Morrie Yohai Morrie Robert Yohai (pronounced yo-high; March 4, 1920 – July 27, 2010) was an American food company executive best known for his creation of Cheez Doodles, a cylindrical baked cornmeal puff most often with a cheddar cheese flavor. Yohai was bor ...

and is produced by Pennsylvania-based snack foods producer Wise Foods.

History

Originally developed and manufactured by King Kone Corp. of the Bronx, Cheez Doodles were developed by the company's owner and operator, Morrie Yohai (1920–2010). King Kone had been founded in the 1920s and manufactured ice cream cones, cheese crackers, popcorn, and

Melba toast Melba toast is a dry, crisp and thinly sliced toast, often served with soup and salad or topped with either melted cheese or pâté. It is named after Dame Nellie Melba, the stage name of Australian opera singer Helen Porter Mitchell. Its name ...

. In the early 1960s, the company had a machine which could be used to produce three-inch lengths of extruded cornmeal. These were then baked with orange

cheddar cheese Cheddar cheese (or simply cheddar) is a natural cheese that is relatively hard, off-white (or orange if colourings such as annatto are added), and sometimes sharp-tasting. Cheddar originates from the English village of Cheddar in Somerset. C ...

powder and other flavorings to produce a new snack food. According to Yohai, the name "Cheez Doodles" came to him while he and other employees were sitting around a table sampling alternatives for the cheese flavoring of the new snack. In the mid-1960s, the company (by then known as Old London Foods) was acquired by Borden and assigned to its Wise potato chip division. In 1997, KKR & Co. acquired a majority interest in Borden; in 2002, Palladium Equity Partners purchased Wise Foods. Today, Wise Foods is owned by

Arca Continental Arca Continental is a Mexican multinational company that produces, distributes, and markets beverages under The Coca-Cola Company brand, as well as snacks under the Bokados brand in Mexico, Inalecsa in Ecuador, and Wise and Deep River in the United ...

, the second-largest

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atla ...

bottler in Central and North America, who bought Wise in 2012. Cheez Doodles remain one of the strongest brands marketed by Wise with 15 million pounds of the product produced in 2010.

Varieties

Cheez Doodles are produced in many varieties. Varieties available were: * Cheez Doodles Baked Puffs – original variety * Cheez Doodles Baked Puffs White Cheddar – white cheddar puffed rather than yellow cheddar * Cheez Doodles Baked Puffs Hot & Honey – honey and cheddar flavored * Cheez Doodles Baked Puffs Honey BBQ – honey

barbecue sauce Barbecue sauce (also abbreviated as BBQ sauce) is a sauce used as a marinade, basting, condiment, or topping for meat cooked in the barbecue cooking style, including pork or beef ribs and chicken. It is a ubiquitous condiment in the Souther ...

flavored * Cheez Doodles Baked Puffs Extra Cheesy – additional yellow cheddar cheese flavoring * Cheez Doodles Extra Crunchy – hard, crunchy fried variety * Cheez Doodles Baked Puffed Balls – spherical puff variety * Cheez Doodles Baked Puffed Balls Jalapeño Poppers – spherical puffs with yellow cheddar with jalapeño flavoring Formerly available varieties included: * Croc-o-Doodles –

crocodile Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant ...

-shaped puffed snacks * Cheez Doodles Crunchy – hard, crunchy fried variety * Cheez Doodles Crunchy, Reduced Fat – lower fat version of the hard, crunchy variety * Cheez Doodle-O's – circle-shaped hard, crunchy snacks

In popular culture

In the comic strip ''

Big Nate ''Big Nate'' (stylized as ''big NATE'' in the comic collections and ''BiG NATE'' in the books) is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Lincoln Peirce, syndicated since January 7, 1991. The strip follows sixth-grader Nate Wrigh ...

'', Cheez Doodles are protagonist Nate Wright's favorite snack food. Cheez Doodles are prominently featured in George R. R. Martin's short story, '' The Pear-shaped Man''.

References

External links

Official website

Cheese Doodles day 5th of March (Scandinavia)
{{Big Nate Brand name snack foods Products introduced in 1948 American snack foods