Call them what you will – cheese puffs, cheese curls, cheese balls, cheesy puffs, whatever the name, these cheesy snacks have seen more fans than the NBA. Cheese puffs have been testing people’s diets since first invented in the nineteenth century, and to think it was all by accident.
Puffs with an accidental past
Every food has a story, and many famous recipes are an accidental result but not so many foods are a result of animal feed. Except for cheese puffs that were born when employees working at an animal food factory in Wisconsin, America poured some moist corn into a piece of agricultural equipment, specifically a grinder, to clean the machines. Let’s expand.
Flakall Corporation was an animal feed manufacturer conducting business in Beloit, Wisconsin in 1935.
The company used grinders to flake corn and produce animal feed because through flaking out the corn, it was able to use as much from the grain as possible. It was an efficient technique to produce feed and avoid losing much of it.
But feed grinders ran the risk of clogging if not cleaned periodically. So employees would put moist corn into the machines for cleaning purposes. What happened was that under the heat of the machine the corn puffed up into … the first corn puffs ever.
This is what happened next
The company started producing the extruded snacks for human consumption and switched entirely to making snack foods later on.
According to how the story goes, an employee was curious to see if the puffs were really edible, so he took home a few, had them seasoned, and seeing they were indeed good to eat by humans, named them Korn Kurls.
Korn Kurls became the world’s first puffs and Flakall Corporation, later rebranded as Adams Corporation, claims to have been the first to make cheese curls. Others beg to differ.
Chee Wees and then Cheetos
Other companies also state they have been producing cheesy puffs since the early twentieth century. Elmer Candy Corporation’s Chee-Wees product is today a highly appreciated snack, and according to them, they were the first to invent the cheese puff. And there are others too.
But whoever invented these decadent cheesy snacks, the fact remains that it was the Cheetos Company which brought the cheese puffs to the masses. The company had already become famous with Fritos, with the name and the means to market the new snack nationwide.
Although there are people who prefer Chee Wees to any other types of snacks, and then there are people who’ve never even heard of them, Cheetos are still the most popular cheese curls today according to statistics.
Nowadays, there are literally hundreds of cheese puff brands, some extremely popular, others private label. And to the delight of those who take it easy on the fried foods, there are many brands that also produce baked cheese puffs. In fact, Chee Wees are among the first of these cheesy snacks to have been baked since a long time.