60 Fun Facts About Snack

Doritos were first made from surplus tortillas at a restaurant inside which theme park?

The park's Mexican restaurant cut up, cooked and seasoned the leftovers; Frito-Lay marketing chief Arch West noticed and made a deal in 1964.

What was the first Doritos flavour when they launched nationally in 1966?

Taco followed in 1967 and nacho cheese only arrived in 1972.

Cheetos were invented in 1948 by the creator of which other corn snack?

Charles Elmer Doolin cooked test batches in his Dallas R&D kitchen, then partnered with potato-chip man Herman Lay to sell them.

Charles Doolin bought the recipe for his corn chips in 1932 from a Mexican soccer coach for how much?

The deal included Gustavo Olguin's potato ricer and 19 retail accounts; the company began in the Doolin garage.

The Frito Company merged with H.W. Lay & Company to form Frito-Lay in which year?

Four years later Frito-Lay merged with Pepsi-Cola to create PepsiCo.

Which company invented Pringles in 1968 and first sold them as 'Newfangled Potato Chips'?

P&G sold the brand on in 2012; the snack is technically 'extruded' from a potato dough.

What shape is each Pringles chip formed into before frying?

The hyperbolic-paraboloid curve is what lets them stack in the can.

Goldfish crackers were created in 1958 by a Swiss baker for his wife's star sign. Which sign?

Company founder Margaret Rudkin tried them on holiday in Switzerland and brought them to the US in 1962.

Which US company makes Goldfish crackers?

The smiley face was only added in 1997, and appears on about 40% of the crackers.

Goldfish crackers went to space in 1988 aboard which shuttle?

STS-26 was the return-to-flight mission after the Challenger disaster.

Ritz Crackers debuted in 1934 with a name chosen to offer Depression-era shoppers what?

Nabisco employee Sydney Stern also designed the blue-and-yellow logo, inspired by the label inside his hat.

How many perforations does an original Ritz cracker have?

The disc also has a finely scalloped edge; the brand now belongs to Mondelez.

Cracker Jack's slogan, registered in 1896, promises what?

Food historian Andrew F. Smith has called it the first junk food.

In 2016 Frito-Lay replaced the toy prize in Cracker Jack boxes with what?

The molasses-caramel popcorn-and-peanut mix has been owned by Frito-Lay since 1997.

The first Slim Jim was invented in 1929 in which city?

Al Levis sold the company for about $20 million in 1967; Conagra owns it now.

Cheez-It crackers were introduced in 1921 by a company in which Ohio city?

Green & Green marketed them as a 'baked rarebit', after the dish of melted cheese on toast.

What does the word 'frito' mean in Spanish?

'Dorito' comes from 'doradito', meaning little golden thing.

Lay's potato chips are sold under which brand name in the UK and Ireland?

In Australia the same PepsiCo chips are sold as Smith's.

Ignacio 'Nacho' Anaya improvised nachos in 1943 in which Mexican border city?

He topped crisp tortilla triangles with Colby cheese and pickled jalapeños for a group of US officers' wives from Eagle Pass, Texas.

Rice Krispies Treats were invented in 1939 by two employees of the cereal's maker in which city?

Malitta Jensen and Mildred Day created them as a promotion for the cereal; ready-made ones were not sold until 1995.

The word 'jerky' comes from ch'arki, meaning dried salted meat, in which language?

The Inca-era word travelled north with the meat-drying technique.

In Canada, where Chex cereal is not sold, the homemade party mix is known as what?

The boxed Chex Party Mix recipe predates the commercial bagged version by 30 years.

Nabisco's animal crackers were branded in 1902 with the name of which circus?

The little box got a string handle that Christmas so it could hang on the tree.

Graham crackers grew out of the preaching of Sylvester Graham, a figure in which 19th-century movement?

His followers, the Grahamites, formed one of America's first vegetarian movements; Graham himself never profited from the crackers.

Funyuns were nearly called what, until it turned out the name was already trademarked?

A University of North Texas professor came up with the replacement name in 1969.

Horn-shaped Bugles were launched nationally in 1966 by which company?

Sibling snacks Daisys, Pizza Spins, Whistles, Buttons and Bows were all gone by the 1970s.

Takis rolled tortilla chips are made by Barcel, a subsidiary of which Mexican food giant?

They launched in Mexico in 1999 as 'Taquis'; the chili-lime flavour in the purple bag arrived in 2006.

Which flavour of Takis, sold in a purple bag, is the best seller?

The chip's rolled shape is modelled on the taquito.

Pocky, the Japanese coated biscuit stick first sold in 1966, is made by which company?

The name imitates 'pokkin', the Japanese sound of the stick snapping.

What was the original filling of the Twinkie when it was invented in 1930?

Baker James Dewar wanted to use shortcake machines that sat idle when strawberries were out of season.

Twinkie inventor James Dewar said the name came from a billboard advertising what?

He saw the sign in St. Louis; the cakes are now baked in Emporia, Kansas.

Twinkies vanished from US shelves for several months from November 2012. Why?

They returned nationwide on July 15, 2013, under new owners.

The Oreo, launched in 1912, was an imitation of which earlier chocolate sandwich cookie?

Hydrox came out in 1908, but most people now assume it is the copycat.

Pop-Tarts were launched in 1964 by which company?

They are sold in pairs in Mylar packages and marketed as breakfast, though plenty get eaten as snacks.

How many white icing squiggles run across the top of a Hostess CupCake?

First sold in 1919, it is claimed to be the first commercially produced cupcake, though rival Tastykake disputes the 'first snack cake' title.

What reportedly happened when the Red Cross stopped giving Nutter Butters to Georgia blood donors in 1995?

Nabisco agreed to donate the cookies the following year and the crisis ended.

Fig Newtons were named after a suburb of which US city?

A plant manager at the F. A. Kennedy Steam Bakery picked the name in 1891; 'Fig' was dropped from the brand in 2012.

Triscuits were first made in 1903 in Niagara Falls, chosen for its proximity to what?

Early ads boasted the crackers were 'baked by electricity'; the name may blend electricity and biscuit.

Planters' Mr. Peanut mascot was designed in 1916 by whom?

Antonio Gentile's drawing was polished by a commercial artist and has been tweaked ever since.

Popcorn kernels expand to how many times their original size when they pop?

Steam pressure builds inside the hull until it ruptures at 14-20% moisture.

Which Chicago candy-store owner invented the steam-powered popcorn machine in the 1890s?

His street carts made popcorn a cheap Depression-era treat that theatre owners initially resented.

Which company received the first patent for a microwave popcorn bag, in 1981?

Orville Redenbacher's own brand had launched a decade earlier, in 1970.

Popcorn is the official state snack of which US state, thanks to an elementary school project?

At least six Midwestern towns claim the title 'Popcorn Capital of the World'.

According to the most popular origin story, a monk shaped the first pretzel in 610 AD to look like what?

He supposedly called them 'pretiola', little rewards, and handed them to students who learned their prayers.

The pretzel has been the emblem of which trade's guilds in southern Germany since the 1100s?

Made only of flour and water, pretzels were permitted during Lent, and were once hidden on Easter morning like eggs.

What treatment gives a traditional pretzel its shiny brown skin?

The alkaline dip speeds up the Maillard browning reaction in the oven.

Which brand was America's number-one pretzel by dollar sales in 2014, ahead of Rold Gold?

Rold Gold began in 1917 as the American Cone and Pretzel Company and was bought by Frito-Lay in the early 1960s.

Cheese puffs were first developed in the 1930s from a machine that made what?

Edward Wilson noticed puffed corn oozing from Flakall's feed flakers in Beloit, Wisconsin; the result was sold as Korn Kurls from 1946.

Smartfood white cheddar popcorn was bought by Frito-Lay in 1989 for how much?

Co-founder Annie Withey went on to start Annie's Homegrown macaroni and cheese.

Sun Chips multigrain chips were first test-marketed in which metro area?

Frito-Lay's first multigrain attempt, Prontos, had flopped in the 1970s.

Which outdoorsman's 1910s camping guide recommended the nuts, raisins and chocolate mix now called trail mix?

In Germany the same mix is called Studentenfutter, 'student fodder'.

The earliest known potato chip recipe appears in which 1817 London cookbook by William Kitchiner?

It was a bestseller in both Britain and America, decades before the Saratoga Springs legend.

Tayto, whose owner produced the world's first seasoned crisps in 1954, is a company from which country?

Joe 'Spud' Murphy and employee Seamus Burke settled on cheese and onion; Walkers matched it the same year.

In the 1920s, Laura Scudder had her workers iron sheets of what into bags for chips?

The bags cut crumbling and kept chips fresh, helping them become a mass-market product.

What was the name of the 1980 stuffed sandwich that preceded the Hot Pocket?

Hot Pockets replaced it in 1983 and were first sold to restaurants, which were easier to break into than shops.

Which food giant has produced Hot Pockets since buying Chef America in 2002?

The brothers who founded Chef America had invented a sleeve that kept the dough crispy in a microwave.

CornNuts' 1964 hybrid was bred from a large-kernelled corn grown near which Peruvian city?

Some kernels were said to be bigger than a quarter; the brand was first handed out free in bars in 1936.

Granola's ancestor 'Granula' was invented in 1863 at a sanitarium in which US state?

Dr James Caleb Jackson made it from Graham flour; John Harvey Kellogg renamed his version Granola to avoid a lawsuit.

Rebecca Webb Carranza popularised the triangular tortilla chip at her tortilla factory in which city?

She fried misshapen rejects from her tortilla machine and sold them for a dime a bag.

A 1973 ad campaign claimed the fussy diner in the potato chip origin myth was which tycoon?

Historians have since debunked the whole George Crum story.