Are you ready for a great snack and orange fingers? Happy National Cheese Doodle Day! March 5th is the annual celebration for the cheddar cheese coated, puffed or crunchy, fried or baked snack food.
The actual inventor of Cheese Doodles is under debate.
Generally, the credit goes to a man named Morrie Yohai who made a variety of extruded snack foods in the 1940s for his family’s company called Old London Foods. Other sources show patents for similar products in the 1930s and still other competing accounts in Wisconsin and in New Orleans as well.
The inventor of cheese doodles is not entirely clear – the date when exactly they first appeared isn’t easy to find. Usually, food historians will attribute the bite-size treat to one of two inventors; either one Edward Wilson and/or Clarence J. Schwebke, who worked at the Flakall Corporation in Wisconsin around the 1930s. This company actually specialized in making flaky pet food, but created what was called ‘Korn Kurls’ as a (for humans) snack and applied for a patent in 1939. The snack was commercialized in 1946 by another company, the Adams Corporation.
The second most commonly cited inventor is Elmer Candy of New Orleans, Louisiana, around 1936. Today, Elmer’s Fine Foods still sells cheese doodles under the name ‘CheeWees’.
However they came to be, they are here. Their crunchy, orange deliciousness is enjoyed around the world! They come in a variety of shapes, sizes and flavors and 15 million pounds are produced annually.
- Cheetos cheese-flavored puffs became a hit in the 1950’s soon, Cheez Doodles appeared.
- “Cheez Doodles fingers” is the official word used to when you get cheese powder on your fingers after eating ANY cheese flavored snack food.
- Cheez Doodles are said to be one of the only packaged snack foods preferred by Julia Child.
- They have recently entered pop culture as the preferred snack of ESPN NBA analyst Stephen A. Smith, and are the favourite snack of Lincoln Peirce’s comic character Big Nate.
- Wise (the company that produces Cheez Doodles) recently made their Crunchy Cheez Doodles “cheezier,” more akin to Cheetos’ flavor.
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