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Cheezies
DCHP-2 (Aug 2012)
Spelling variants:cheezies
n. — proprietary, Food
a finger-sized snack food of deep-fried cornmeal with cheese-flavoured coating (see Image 1).
Type: 1. Origin — Invented after World War II in the US, Cheezies were produced from 1949-56 in Tweed, ON, and thereafter in Belleville, ON, by W.T. Hawkins Ltd. (see Cheezies website below). W. T. Hawkins Confections went bankrupt in the US shortly after the brand moved to Canada and thus the snack is available only in Canada, although imitations exist.
While the technique was originally developed for cattle feed (see the 2012 quotation), its reapplication to create a new snack food is a post-WWII innovation.
Quotations
1954
Advertisement for AP Super Markets:
A Tasty Snack: Cheezies
Lrg Pkg 21 cents
1978
Considering that the majority of us traditionally would rather spend countless hours this time of year watching our favourite television shows, occasionally casting a worried glance at our ever-increasing midriff bulges as we munch handfuls of Cheezies, Fritos or whatever, it came as a pleasant surprise to program organizers when attendance figures at the midpoint of the program still showed no signs of the usual mid-program lull.
1984
A tiny, fuzzy dog is yapping at her feet and Peter, her boy friend of two years, is emptying a bag of cheezies into a glass bowl and opening two cans of Diet Pepsi.
1996
No-neck was certainly not picky. Cheezies, apples, cinnamon buns, bananas, jelly-tot, macaroni and cheese - Coleman gaveth and gull didst taketh away.
2012
OBITUARY
Jim Marker moulded Cheezies into a Canadian icon
Around 1940, a young Ohio farmer named Jim Marker was looking for a way to preserve corn to feed his cattle year-round. So, with the help of a friend, he built a special extruder to mould the grain into porous sticks. Chicago confectioner W.T. Hawkins got word of the unusual invention and dispatched his son, Webb, to acquire Mr. Marker’s idea and develop it into a snack food. The farmer agreed, and went into business with Mr. Hawkins. The cornmeal concoctions, now fried in oil and coated in powdered cheddar, were dubbed Cheezies. Within a few years, the company relocated to Eastern Ontario and the savoury orange morsels in distinctive red and white bags became a quintessentially Canadian snack – ubiquitous everywhere from TV trays to office desks to children’s loot bags at Halloween – and spawned a host of imitators.
Around 1940, a young Ohio farmer named Jim Marker was looking for a way to preserve corn to feed his cattle year-round. So, with the help of a friend, he built a special extruder to mould the grain into porous sticks. Chicago confectioner W.T. Hawkins got word of the unusual invention and dispatched his son, Webb, to acquire Mr. Marker’s idea and develop it into a snack food. The farmer agreed, and went into business with Mr. Hawkins. The cornmeal concoctions, now fried in oil and coated in powdered cheddar, were dubbed Cheezies. Within a few years, the company relocated to Eastern Ontario and the savoury orange morsels in distinctive red and white bags became a quintessentially Canadian snack – ubiquitous everywhere from TV trays to office desks to children’s loot bags at Halloween – and spawned a host of imitators.
References
- Cheezies website • Cheezies history
Images
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