109 Fun Facts About Snack

Doritos reportedly began as leftover tortillas cut into chips at a restaurant inside which theme park?

Disneyland. Casa de Fritos turned its leftover tortillas into chips there, though Frito-Lay's Arch West said he got the idea at a San Diego roadside restaurant.

Doritos went national in 1966 with just one flavour; what was it?

Toasted corn. Many shoppers outside the Southwest found the plain chips too bland for a Mexican-style snack, so Frito-Lay rolled out taco flavour in 1967.

Which cheese-flavoured snack did Fritos founder Charles Elmer Doolin invent in 1948?

Cheetos. Doolin couldn't make enough to sell them nationwide, so he teamed up with potato-chip businessman Herman Lay to distribute them.

How much did Charles Elmer Doolin pay in 1932 for the corn-chip recipe that launched Fritos?

$100, which bought Gustavo Olguin's recipe and his converted potato ricer, and the Doolin family began making the chips at home.

Frito-Lay merged with which soft-drink company in 1965?

Pepsi-Cola. Pepsi's Donald Kendall summed up the pairing: 'Potato chips make you thirsty; Pepsi satisfies thirst.'

Which company launched Pringles in 1968 as 'Newfangled Potato Chips'?

Procter & Gamble. Chemist Fredric Baur, who designed the tube-shaped can, was so proud of it that his children buried some of his ashes in one.

What shape is each Pringles chip formed into before frying?

A saddle, a curve mathematicians call a hyperbolic paraboloid, which lets the chips nest neatly in the can instead of breaking in a bag.

The Swiss baker who created Goldfish crackers shaped them after his wife's star sign; which sign?

Pisces, the fish. Oscar Kambly made the crackers as a birthday present for his wife.

Which US company makes Goldfish crackers?

Pepperidge Farm. Its founder, Margaret Rudkin, found the crackers on a trip to Switzerland and brought the recipe home, launching them in the US in 1962.

Goldfish crackers flew into space in 1988 aboard which shuttle, on NASA's first flight after the Challenger disaster?

Discovery. The flight tested redesigned rocket-booster joints, the fix for the leaking joint that destroyed Challenger, and they held.

Which pie did a famous back-of-the-box Ritz Crackers recipe imitate?

Apple pie. Crackers baked in a lemony, cinnamon-spiced sugar syrup mimic apple filling, a thrifty trick cooks used long before Nabisco printed the recipe in the 1930s.

Oreo's 2013 Super Bowl blackout tweet said you can still do what in the dark?

Dunk. Oreo had copywriters and artists on standby, so its blackout post was up fast and drew nearly 15,000 retweets.

The name Cracker Jack comes from a slang word meaning what?

Excellent. A salesman reportedly tasted the candied popcorn and exclaimed 'That's crackerjack!', and the name was registered in 1896.

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.

From 1993 to 2000, which wrestler closed Slim Jim ads by bellowing 'Snap into a Slim Jim!'?

Randy Savage. Slim Jims had been a bar snack sold from jars of vinegar, and his loud ads helped turn them into a teenage staple.

Cheez-It crackers were first advertised as a baked version of which cheese dish?

Welsh rarebit. Dayton's Green & Green pitched them as 'baked rarebit', then sold the business in the early 1930s to the biscuit company later renamed Sunshine Biscuits.

What does the word 'frito' mean in Spanish?

Fried. Doolin first found the chips being sold as fritos, 'little fried things', and his family kept the word as their brand name.

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

Walkers. Its 'Do Us a Flavour' contest invited the whole country to invent new crisp flavours for the shelves.

Ignacio 'Nacho' Anaya improvised nachos for officers' wives who had crossed the border from which US state?

Texas. The women came from Eagle Pass, and with the cook missing, Anaya topped fried tortilla pieces with cheese and jalapeños; the dish took his nickname.

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

Battle Creek. Mildred Day and Malitta Jensen created the squares in the company kitchens to promote the cereal; ready-made treats only reached shops in 1995.

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

Quechua. Andean ch'arki is made from llama and alpaca meat, and Spanish speakers borrowed the word as charqui before it reached English.

Which cereal gave its name to the party mix spread by a 1952 Life magazine ad?

Chex. Families baked the mix from recipes on Chex boxes for three decades before ready-made bags reached stores in 1985.

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

Barnum's. Nabisco put a string on the little box so it could hang on a Christmas tree as an ornament.

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

Temperance. Graham blamed meat and alcohol for inflaming the appetites, and prescribed bland whole-grain food, including coarse wafers he baked himself.

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

OnYums. That name already belonged to another company, so copywriter and professor Jim Albright coined 'Funyuns' instead.

Which US president briefly fainted after swallowing a pretzel while watching football?

George W. Bush. He joked the next day that he should have listened to his mother and always chewed his pretzels before swallowing.

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

Grupo Bimbo. Barcel built Takis through small shops and gas stations, where the spicy chips caught on with teenagers.

Which 1908 song gave Cracker Jack free publicity in its chorus?

Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Lyricist Jack Norworth wrote it after seeing a subway sign for a Polo Grounds game, though he had never been to one.

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

Ezaki Glico. In 1984 its president was kidnapped by an extortion gang calling itself 'The Monster with 21 Faces', and he escaped on his own.

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

Banana cream. When bananas were rationed during World War II, the bakers switched to vanilla, and the new filling proved so popular that it stayed.

Which horror comedy sends one of its heroes on a desperate hunt for a Twinkie?

Zombieland. Woody Harrelson, whose character spends the film chasing one, told interviewers he doesn't even like Twinkies.

Why did Twinkies vanish from US shelves for several months starting in November 2012?

Hostess went bankrupt, and private-equity firms Apollo and Metropoulos bought the brands for $410 million, bringing Twinkies back on July 15, 2013.

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

Hydrox, launched by Sunshine Biscuits in 1908; Oreo outsold it so thoroughly that many people now assume Hydrox is the copy.

Pop-Tarts were launched in 1964 by which company?

Kellogg's. It rushed its toaster pastry out after rival Post announced one, and renamed it from Fruit Scones to Pop-Tarts as a play on Pop Art.

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

Blood donations fell, and the following year the Red Cross reversed course and brought the Nutter Butters back.

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?

A hydroelectric plant. Early ads boasted Triscuits were 'baked by electricity', and the name may blend 'electricity' and 'biscuit'.

Which snack mascot began as a schoolboy's winning drawing in a design contest?

Mr. Peanut. A commercial artist polished Antonio Gentile's drawings, adding the top hat and monocle that became the mascot's trademark.

What trapped inside a popcorn kernel makes it burst open when heated?

Water. As it heats, pressure builds inside the tough hull until the kernel bursts and puffs up 20 to 50 times larger.

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

Charles Cretors. Unhappy with a roasting machine he bought for his shop, he rebuilt it around a small steam engine and later built machines that popped corn.

Microwave popcorn factory workers developed a severe lung disease from breathing which flavouring chemical?

Diacetyl. After popcorn workers in Missouri became ill, big microwave popcorn brands took the butter-flavouring chemical out of their products in 2007.

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?

Arms folded in prayer. The monk supposedly called the treats pretiola, 'little rewards', and gave them to pupils who learned their prayers.

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

Bakers. Made from little more than flour and water, pretzels could be eaten during Lent, when eggs, milk and butter were forbidden.

What treatment gives a traditional pretzel its shiny brown skin?

A lye or washing-soda bath. The alkaline coating speeds up the browning reaction in the oven, which gives pretzels their deep brown, glossy crust.

Which pretzel maker's planned merger with its rival neighbour Utz was dropped after a federal antitrust inquiry?

Snyder's of Hanover. Both firms are based in Hanover, Pennsylvania, and Snyder's went on to merge with cracker maker Lance, forming Snyder's-Lance.

One origin story says cheese puffs began with a machine meant to make what?

Animal feed. Puffed strings of corn came out of the machines at Flakall, a feed maker in Beloit, Wisconsin, and a worker turned them into a snack.

The founders of Smartfood popcorn went on to launch which mac-and-cheese brand?

Annie's. Selling Smartfood to Frito-Lay for $15 million in 1989 freed co-founder Annie Withey to launch the mac and cheese that bears her name.

Which chip brand pulled its compostable bag from most flavours in 2010 after complaints that it was too loud?

SunChips. Frito-Lay kept the bag only for the original flavour, then brought out a quieter version in 2011 with a rubbery adhesive between its layers.

Japanese students often get Kit Kats before exams because the name sounds like a phrase meaning what?

Surely win, from 'kitto katsu'. Kit Kat's maker even teamed up with Japan Post so the bars could be mailed to students as good-luck charms.

The earliest known potato chip recipe, from decades before the Saratoga Springs legend, came from which country?

England. William Kitchiner's 1817 recipe soon crossed the Atlantic: Mary Randolph's 1824 The Virginia House-Wife repeated it almost word for word.

Tayto, the crisp maker credited with inventing cheese-and-onion flavouring in 1954, is from which country?

Ireland. Joe 'Spud' Murphy's firm worked out how to add the seasoning directly to the crisps during production.

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

Wax paper. Sealed bags kept her chips from going stale, so they no longer had to be scooped from barrels and glass cases into paper sacks.

Which comedian built one of his best-known stand-up routines around Hot Pockets?

Jim Gaffigan. The bit became so famous that fans hand him Hot Pockets wherever he goes.

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

Nestlé retired the Hot Pockets microwave crisping sleeve in 2024, saying the change cuts packaging waste and shortens cooking time.

CornNuts bred its hybrid from a giant Andean corn grown near which Peruvian city?

Cusco corn would not grow in the US, so CornNuts crossbred it with a domestic corn to create a hybrid that could be farmed in California.

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

New York's Dr James Caleb Jackson made Granula so dense it had to soak overnight in milk; a rival's similar cereal was renamed Granola to avoid legal trouble with him.

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

Los Angeles was home to her tortilla factory, where she turned misshapen machine rejects into triangle chips 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?

Cornelius Vanderbilt couldn't have sent back the thick fries: he was touring Europe that summer, one of several holes that make the Saratoga story a myth.

Which 1990s sitcom popularised the term 'double-dipping' when a character re-dipped a chip at a wake?

Seinfeld gave the offence to George in 'The Implant', where he gorges on snacks at a wake in Detroit and is confronted over his chip. The phrase then entered everyday speech.

Which gas is pumped into snack bags in place of air to stop chips going rancid and getting crushed?

Nitrogen does not react with the oils in a chip, so it keeps them from spoiling the way the oxygen in air would. The gas also puffs the bag into a cushion.

Freeze-dried 'astronaut ice cream' was developed by Whirlpool under contract to NASA for which space programme?

Apollo crews may never have tasted it: the only evidence it flew is a single Apollo 7 menu, and the mission's last surviving astronaut did not remember being served any.

Which brand did Utah's Senate honour as a favourite state snack after Des Moines briefly out-ate the state?

Jell-O won the title in 2001 after petitions and a campaign by Brigham Young University students, two years after the Iowa city had edged ahead in eating it.

Oscar Mayer designed which boxed kit of crackers, meat and cheese in the 1980s to sell more bologna?

Lunchables grew out of focus groups in which mothers said their biggest worry was time, so the lunch meat came packed ready to eat. Test sales began in 1987.

In the early 1990s, US sales of which chip dip overtook tomato ketchup by dollar value?

Salsa out-earned ketchup for the first time in 1992. The Pace company had been bottling its version, sold as 'picante sauce', since 1947.

Ore-Ida's founders invented which bite-sized potato snack to use up leftover slivers of cut potatoes?

Tater Tots began as chopped-up scraps mixed with flour, pushed through holes and sliced off as the mash emerged. The name is a registered Ore-Ida trademark.

Frank Epperson said he was 11 when a drink left outdoors froze around its stirring stick, inspiring which frozen treat?

Popsicle was the name his children are said to have insisted on. Epperson's 1924 patent had called the frozen treat the 'Epsicle ice pop'.

Around 1300, long before it meant a light meal, the English verb 'snack' described the snapping bite of which animal?

A dog that 'snacked' in medieval English was biting or snapping. The noun later came to mean a share or portion, and by the 1720s a hasty meal.

Machine-spun cotton candy was co-invented in 1897 by William Morrison, who surprisingly worked in which profession?

Dentist Morrison and confectioner John Wharton introduced their spun sugar as 'Fairy Floss' at the 1904 World's Fair, where it sold 68,655 boxes.

Orville Redenbacher, the bow-tied face of his own popcorn brand, graduated from Purdue with a degree in which field?

Agronomy was no gimmick: Redenbacher and his business partner tried tens of thousands of popcorn hybrids before settling on one they named 'RedBow'.

Bert Lahr, The Wizard of Oz's Cowardly Lion, fronted 1960s Lay's adverts built on which slogan?

Betcha can't eat just one became the best-known line Lay's ever used, and Lahr sold it by turning up in a different costume from one commercial to the next.

Which cookie and cracker brand's adverts feature elves, led by Ernie, baking inside a hollow tree?

Keebler got its elves in 1968 from the Leo Burnett ad agency, which called their bakery the Hollow Tree Factory. Ernie was promoted to head elf two years later.

Which marshmallow snack cake is thrown to crowds from Mardi Gras floats in Mobile, Alabama?

MoonPie became a Mobile parade 'throw' in 1956, and the city sees in each New Year by lowering a lighted 12-foot model of one. Bakery lore says a coal miner asked for a snack as big as the moon.

Which mall pretzel chain began in the 1980s as a single stand at a farmers' market in Downingtown?

Auntie Anne's was started by Anne Beiler and her husband Jonas, and within seven years it had opened its first overseas store, in Jakarta.

Massachusetts innkeeper Ruth Wakefield is generally credited with inventing which cookie in the 1930s?

Chocolate chip cookies came out of the Toll House Inn she ran in Whitman. Earlier cookies had used grated or melted chocolate, but hers kept it in distinct pieces.

Which youth organisation's members were recorded making s'mores in the 1920s, under the name 'Some Mores'?

Girl Scouts were described eating 'Some-mores' in a 1925 newspaper, and a 1927 scouting cookbook printed the recipe. The shortened name caught on in the 1930s.

Ketchup and 'all-dressed' are potato chip flavours primarily associated with which country?

Canada took to ketchup chips in the 1970s, especially in Manitoba, while all-dressed piles ketchup, barbecue and vinegar flavours onto a single chip.

In Britain, 'pigs in blankets' are small sausages wrapped in what, rather than the pastry used in America?

Bacon-wrapped chipolatas are a fixture beside the Christmas turkey in Britain. The American party snack of the same name bakes its sausage inside dough.

The 1950s party favourite 'California dip' was made by stirring instant onion soup mix into what?

Sour cream and soup powder were first combined by an unknown cook in 1954. Lipton promoted the recipe on television a year later, and it lives on as French onion dip.

Little Debbie cakes were named after a real four-year-old girl; how was she related to company founder O.D. McKee?

Granddaughter Debbie was four when the McKees put her name on a product in 1960, and she went on to become an executive at the family firm.

Which energy snack, conceived during a day-long 175-mile bike ride, was created by baker Gary Erickson?

Clif Bar honours his father Clifford. Erickson, a baker and former mountain guide, had first toyed with calling it Forza, Torque or Gary's Bar.

Combos, the pretzel tubes stuffed with cheese filling, are made by which company better known for chocolate bars?

Mars sells Combos as tubes of cracker, pretzel or tortilla around a soft filling. The company also makes Snickers and M&M's.

Which corn snack did General Mills launch in the 1960s alongside the short-lived Whistles, Daisys and Buttons?

Bugles outlived every sibling: the flower-shaped Daisys, tube-shaped Whistles and cheesy Buttons were all dropped in the 1970s, leaving only the little horns.

Ranch dressing is little known in mainland Europe, so Doritos sells its ranch-flavoured chips there under which name?

Cool American is the name on the bag across much of the continent, while British shoppers know the same Cool Ranch chip as Cool Original.

The moustachioed mascot on Pringles cans was nameless until a 2006 internet prank gave him which first name?

Julius began as a hoax typed into an online encyclopedia, was repeated by news outlets, and by 2013 had been formally adopted by the brand's owner.

Before founding his Famous Amos cookie brand, Wally Amos signed Simon & Garfunkel while working in which job?

Talent agent Amos was the first African American in that role at the William Morris Agency, where he had started in the mailroom and rose to head its rock 'n' roll department.

Jeno Paulucci, famous for canned Chinese food, wanted a new use for his egg roll machine; which snack resulted?

Pizza rolls are, in Paulucci's own words, 'nothing but egg rolls with pizza crust and filling'. His Jeno's brand began using the name as a trademark in 1967.

Frito-Lay's fat-free WOW chips of the 1990s used which fat substitute, later blamed for digestive side effects?

Olestra adds no usable calories, but US regulators at first required a label warning shoppers of possible effects on the gut. The chips were renamed Lay's Light in 2004 and later dropped.

Which stovetop popcorn brand comes in a foil-topped pan that balloons into a dome as the kernels burst?

Jiffy Pop packs kernels and oil in a disposable aluminium pan with its own handle, to be shaken over a burner or campfire until the foil swells.

Australia's Tim Tam chocolate biscuit was named after the horse that won which American race in 1958?

Kentucky Derby winner Tim Tam caught the ear of Ross Arnott, who was at the race and decided the name was perfect for the biscuit his family firm was planning.

McVitie's won a 1991 British tax case by arguing that which snack hardens when stale, as a cake does?

Jaffa Cakes were ruled to be cakes, which carry no VAT, rather than chocolate-covered biscuits, which do. McVitie's baked a 12-inch one to show the tribunal that size was beside the point.

Which Piccadilly department store claims to have invented the Scotch egg, a sausage-wrapped picnic snack, back in 1738?

Fortnum & Mason is only one claimant: a food historian has suggested the real inspiration was nargisi kofta, a Mughlai dish of boiled egg encased in spiced meat.

The stroopwafel, two thin waffle layers stuck together with syrup, was first made in which Dutch city famous for cheese?

Gouda folklore has frugal locals sweetening leftover scraps and crumbs with syrup around the turn of the 19th century. By 1960 the city had 17 stroopwafel factories.

Biltong, the cured and air-dried meat snack of southern Africa, takes its name from two words in which language?

Afrikaans supplies both halves: 'bil' means buttock and 'tong' means strip or tongue, a blunt description of a strip of rump.

In which small European country do men give their sweethearts a pretzel on 'Pretzel Sunday' in the middle of Lent?

Luxembourg calls the day Bretzelsonndeg. A woman who welcomes the gift answers with an egg at Easter, and in leap years the roles are swapped.

America's first commercial hard pretzel bakery opened in the town of Lititz in which state?

Pennsylvania owes its pretzel habit to German-speaking immigrants, the Pennsylvania Dutch, whose handmade pretzel bakeries spread across the middle of the state.

Which British crisp maker, founded in 1920, sold its crisps plain with a little blue sachet of salt in the bag?

Smith's led the British crisp market until the 1960s, when Golden Wonder's cheese and onion flavour overtook it. It hit back with salt and vinegar in 1967.

Digestive biscuits got their name from an old belief that which ingredient gave them antacid properties?

Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, was the supposed stomach-settler when two Scottish doctors developed the biscuit in 1839 as an aid to digestion.

Which crunchy Italian almond snack takes its name from a medieval Latin word meaning 'twice-cooked'?

Biscotti are baked once as a slab, then sliced and baked again, which once left such biscuits dry enough to be stored for long periods.

The bar snacks called tapas take their name from the Spanish verb 'tapar', which means to do what?

To cover a wine glass with food is the idea in the best-known origin stories: in one, a slice of ham kept fruit flies out of the sherry; in another, it shielded a king's wine from blowing sand.

In cookery, as in the party snack deviled eggs, the word 'devil' has meant what since the 18th century?

Highly seasoned food was first called 'devil' in print in 1786. Some churchgoers in the US South and Midwest so dislike the word that they serve 'stuffed eggs' or 'angel eggs' instead.

Which melted-cheese party dish did Switzerland's cheese union promote in the 1930s as a national dish to boost sales?

Fondue was pushed so hard by the Swiss Cheese Union that the cartel took it to the 1939 World's Fair, the first international stage it used to sell the dish.

Physicists name the effect that lifts the biggest pieces to the top of a shaken tin of mixed nuts after which variety?

Brazil nut effect is the popular name for granular convection: shake a mixture of different-sized pieces and the largest work their way to the surface.

Popcorn makers name the sturdy, ball-shaped flake used for caramel corn after which food?

Mushroom flakes have few fragile 'wings' to snap off, so they are the usual choice for packaged and candy-coated popcorn. Butterfly flakes are more tender and hide their hulls better.

On Ted Lasso, which kind of biscuit does the coach bring to club owner Rebecca every day, starting on his first morning?

Shortbread is Ted's daily gift to a boss who, unknown to him, hired him in the hope that he would fail, as revenge on the unfaithful ex-husband who used to own the team.

Which snack do many baseball players chew and spit in the dugout as an alternative to chewing tobacco?

Sunflower seeds are cracked open with the teeth and the hull spat out, the same ritual that makes them a street food across the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Asia.

Corn for tortilla chips is first soaked and cooked in which alkaline solution, a process called nixtamalization?

Limewater's alkalinity loosens the hulls from the kernels and softens the corn. The technique was worked out in Mesoamerica, with the earliest equipment found in Guatemala.

Arancini, the Sicilian snack of stuffed, breadcrumbed rice balls, are named after which fruit they resemble once cooked?

Oranges, 'aranciu' in Sicilian, lend the name in its diminutive form: the balls are 'little oranges' for the shape and golden colour they take on in the pan.

Which chemical, found in 2002 to form in potato chips cooked at high heat, prompted warning labels in California?

Acrylamide forms where starchy food browns above about 120 °C. Cancer Research UK has called the idea that burnt food causes cancer unlikely and not based on reliable evidence.