Pod Insights The Sporkful Who Invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos? (Reheat) About this episode For two decades, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos has been one of the most popular snacks in America. In recent years its legend has grown, as word spread that they were invented by Richard Montañez, a Mexican-American janitor at Frito-Lay who went on to become a company executive. The story made Montañez something of a Latino icon, with two memoirs and a biopic based on his life. But when L. A. Times reporter Gustavo Arellano started looking into this feel-good story, he found a very different tale.
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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Pashman? You put a lot of love into the things you send during the holidays. It's baked with love, carefully packed with love, or shipped with love right from home. Because what you're sending isn't just what's inside the box. It's the time, thought, and care you put into it. And this holiday season, the United States Postal Service is delivering your love to more addresses in America than anyone else. So send it with love. Send it with USPS. The United States Postal Service. Learn more at USPS.com/holiday. I grew up on Lando Lake's cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lake's American cheese. And now Lando Lake's cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lake's cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table.
0:44 Dan Pashman? From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad thai, Lando Lake's has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.
0:59 Dan Pashman? Hey, everyone. Dan here with a flaming hot Sporkful reheat for you. We took this one out of the deep freezer and heated it up so much that it's now flaming hot. I'm joking just a little bit because in this episode, we tackle the surprisingly loaded question of who really invented flaming hot Cheetos. This one comes by request from listener Adrian in New Jersey who writes, "I just watched Flamin' Hot, the comedy/drama about the man who claims to have invented the flaming hot Cheetos, Richard Montagnes. I know that claim has been debunked, but it was a good story nevertheless. I'd love to revisit that episode." Well, it's true, there's been some debunking, Adrian, but the story is even more dramatic than that setup makes it sound, so I cannot wait to share this episode with you. Now, remember, if there's an episode of the Sporkful you want us to pull out of the
1:41 Dan Pashman? deep freezer and reheat to room temperature or flaming hot, let us know. Send me an email or voice memo to [email protected] . Make sure you tell me your name, location, which episode you want us to reheat, and why. Thanks so much, and enjoy. This episode contains explicit language.
2:02 Speaker 01 I debunked the story of Glenn Bell and how he got the idea for Taco Bell. I debunked the story of Doritos. I blew apart the claim by Taco John's, the fast food taco chain based in Wyoming, who has a trademark to Taco Tuesday. I destroyed Taco John's claim by going into the archives and telling the true story of the term Taco Tuesday. I live for these things. But when it came to this one, I just couldn't cast out on it. It was just too good of a feel-good story. I assumed it was real. How could it not be real?
2:39 Dan Pashman? This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. The person you just heard is Gustavo Ariano. He's a columnist at the LA Times and author of the book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. For years, he's been obsessed with finding the stories of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who haven't gotten credit for the foods they introduced, foods that have become part of American culture. And there was one food in particular that I wanted to talk to him about. I ate flaming hot cheetos for the first time today.
3:13 Speaker 01 What? All these years later?
3:15 Dan Pashman? I know, I know. But you know, look, as a consummate journalist, I felt it was my obligation to eat some before I spoke to you. And I thought they were amazing. I mean, they were really good.
3:26 Speaker 01 What did you like about them?
3:27 Dan Pashman? I mean, they were spicy to my palate.
3:30 Speaker 01 Sure.
3:30 Dan Pashman? But sweet, salty, in a way that just made me want to keep eating them. Like, I've eaten my share of Takis. The spicy Takis to me are just like painfully sharp. There's something about them that's just too hot.
3:42 Speaker 01 No, that's what makes them so good. I like the Takis because they have the sharpness of the heat, but also they have that layer of citrus, you know, like the lime flavor to it that makes them almost tart because they're so sharp on that.
3:55 Dan Pashman? Yes.
3:56 Speaker 01 But for me, flaming hot cheetos, it's flavorful, don't get me wrong. It's not spicy at all. I've never understood people who say, "Oh, flaming hot cheetos, it burns me." Or like, "I have never seen it." Then again, I'm a Mexican, we're used to this level of spice.
4:09 Dan Pashman? Tell me about the first time you ate a flaming hot cheeto.
4:13 Speaker 01 I can't even remember because look, I'm a Doritos man, okay? So if you're a Mexican, it doesn't matter what the flavor is. You have to put hot sauce on it, whether Tapatio, Valentina, Tabasco in a pinch. And the Doritos, the way the hot sauce cascades across the chips, the Doritos chips, it gives it a nice, even flavor.
4:33 Dan Pashman? I would probably take regular Cheetos over regular Doritos because of the crunch. Not just more overall crunch, but I like that there's different size and shape pieces in the Cheetos, so you get variation from one bite to the next.
4:45 Speaker 01 Cheetos, I always liked Cheetos. They're a little bit cheesier, but they just didn't have that crunch that Doritos have.
4:51 Dan Pashman? It shocks me, Gustavo, that you would say you like Doritos better than Cheetos because Doritos are crunchier? Like, I feel like Doritos kind of have a brittle crunch, but Cheetos have like a deep down base kind of crunch that just rocks me.
5:07 Speaker 01 I don't know. I grew up with them, so I think you always associate what's wonderful and great with your childhood. I put more significance to the first time I ate Cool Ranch Doritos than I ever did Flaming Hot Cheetos. Maybe I'm a weirdo like that, but also because that's what happened when I was a kid.
5:24 Dan Pashman? Clearly Gustavo and I could debate Cheetos versus Doritos versus Takis all day, but I take his point. The snacks of your childhood stick with you into adulthood. And for a generation of kids who grew up in the late 90s and 2000s, that snack was Flamin' Hot Cheetos. It was one of the first mainstream snack foods that was marketed as spicy. Flamin' Hot Cheetos were a hit when they launched and just got more and more popular over the years. Kids began competing to see who could survive eating more of the spicy snack. And that competition created a sort of moral panic.
5:57 Speaker 02 Spicy, flaming, hot, that's the name of the game when it comes to chips.
6:02 Speaker 03 The snack is wildly popular with kids with its own Facebook fan page. School districts in California, New Mexico are trying to ban them.
6:09 Speaker 04 Right here in central Texas, these fiery favorites are sending dozens of kids to the emergency room.
6:15 Speaker 05 If it's hot and spicy, it's gonna stay hot and spicy the whole way it goes through your system.
6:19 Speaker 06 These kids will eat, you know, just a ridiculous amount of the Flamin' Hot Cheetos. And then they'll realize their stool is red.
6:27 Speaker 07 What would happen to me if I ate this whole bag?
6:29 Speaker 08 You might have the runs. Your booty might be burnt.
6:34 Dan Pashman? Lots of kids got the runs, as in they kept running right back to the store to get more. In 2019, Adweek reported that Flamin' Hot Cheetos was the nation's favorite snack brand for the third year in a row. And there's one place where it's especially beloved: Southern California.
6:50 Speaker 07 It's like an extremely popular SoCal thing. There's tons of places where you can get like a Flamin' Hot Cheetos burrito or quesadilla in LA.
6:58 Dan Pashman? This is Sam Dean.
6:59 Speaker 07 Yeah, I'm Sam Dean. I'm a business reporter at the LA Times.
7:02 Dan Pashman? Sam's right. At Locolotes in downtown LA, you can get the El Diablo Elote, covered in hot cheeto dust. The Attic, a restaurant in Long Beach, serves mac and cheetos, a mac and cheese spiked with hot cheetos. The low-key poke joint with locations in Riverside and Garden Grove serves hot cheetos-encrusted poke wraps.
7:22 Speaker 07 You go to like a street fair and people are selling like Flamin' Hot Cheeto bag pillows. Like, it's just like a phenom.
7:27 Dan Pashman? Gustavo says there's a reason why this snack has been an especially big hit in this region.
7:32 Speaker 01 In Southern California, the majority of the school kids now are Latinos. You see something spicy, you've been conditioned to a lifetime of just cheese flavor, of Cool Ranch flavor, whatever the hell Cool Ranch is. So now all of a sudden, you realize, oh, there's something spicy. And so subliminally, it's like, oh, I'm seeing myself. My culture's represented in this Flamin' Hot Cheetos. You embrace them, you teach the next generation, hey, this is our chip, this is our snack. And then, once you start getting older, you start hearing this rumor. Oh, did you know that a Mexican janitor invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos?
8:07 Dan Pashman? That former janitor is Richard Montañez.
8:11 Speaker 09 Richard Montanes. Richard Montañez.
8:13 Speaker 10 The godfather of Hispanic branding, Mr. Richard V. Montañez.
8:17 Speaker 11 He invented the hot Flamin' Cheetos. This was a man, you know, man.
8:26 Dan Pashman? He was born and raised in the agricultural town of Ontario, California. His parents worked the fields, picking grapes. In 2014, he spoke at an award ceremony for the League of United Latin American Citizens.
8:38 Speaker 09 And I remember one day, a neighbor said, hey, they're hiring at Frito-Lay. I said, Frito-Lay?
8:46 Speaker 09 What if I could get a job there? What if I can change the destiny for the Montañez family?
8:53 Speaker 09 Maybe we don't have to work the fields anymore if I can get into that, a real job.
8:57 Dan Pashman? It's the late 70s. Richard is 19 and he lands that job at Frito Lay as a janitor in the Rancho Cucamonga plant, just a few miles from where he grew up.
9:07 Speaker 09 And I remember I went home and I told my dad and my grandfather, you know what they told me?
9:14 Speaker 09 When you mop that floor, don't forget that you are a montañés. Let that floor shine.
9:22 Dan Pashman? As Richard tells it, after a decade working at Frito Lay, he sees a video, a message to employees from the new CEO, Roger Enrico. Here's Sam Dean again.
9:31 Speaker 07 Roger Enrico sent out a video telling all the people working at the company to just act like owners, take ownership of the company and, you know, come up with their own ideas, come up with ways to improve everything. You know, I think it was based on the kind of like Toyota Kaizen model of continuous improvement. You know, it was a real big, like 80s kind of business thing, letting frontline workers take over.
9:51 Dan Pashman? When Richard sees that video, he feels like the CEO is talking directly to him. After 10 years as a janitor, Richard's eager to move up the ranks. As he writes in his memoir, he's always looking for ways to prove himself, to show he can do more than just mop floors. He starts taking shifts in the production line, learning how the different machines work. He creates a new ultra-thin chip that he pitches to the R and D team, but they turn him down. Richard keeps at it. On his day off, he decides to ride along with one of the warehouse drivers who delivers chips in the area. And the last stop is Richard's local grocery store. He notices that the chip rack where Frito Lay has their ruffles and lays and cheetos, it's right next to the section with the Mexican spices, like chili powder, cumin,
10:32 Dan Pashman? paprika, and cayenne pepper. Here's Richard talking on the podcast, The Passionate Few.
10:37 Speaker 09 And I saw all these spices and then I looked at our products and like, ah, we didn't really have a lot of spices.
10:44 Dan Pashman? Richard thinks to himself, Frito Lay should be using these spices in their chips. A week later, he's leaving the grocery store and he sees an elote vendor. Elote, of course, Mexican grilled corn. Richard buys an elote. It's covered in butter, cotija cheese, cilantro, and chili powder.
11:00 Speaker 09 So I took a bite and when I looked at it, it was like, this looks like a cheeto.
11:04 Dan Pashman? And that's when he says it hits him.
11:07 Speaker 09 What would happen if I put chile on a cheeto?
11:15 Dan Pashman? Richard gets to work. He knows that at the plant, there are often leftover tubs of unseasoned cheetos that get thrown out. So he brings home a garbage bag full of naked cheetos and sets up a food lab in his kitchen. The whole family gets into it. They start with a salsa that Richard's wife makes at home, and they begin tweaking the ingredients and proportions. They create a makeshift tumbler using a plastic bag meant for roasting a turkey, and they keep fine tuning the recipe. They figure out that spraying the cheetos with oil first helps the seasoning stay on the chip. Richard even comes up with a name: Flamin' Hot Cheetos. He thinks he's got a great idea, and he believes the CEO's words, that he should act like an owner. Here's Richard giving another speech in 2014 at the Latino Leaders Network.
11:56 Dan Pashman? So I did what any typical Latino genre would do is I called up the CEO. He pitches his idea for a spicy cheeto to CEO Roger Enrico. And this is what he said. "I'll be in Cucamonga in two weeks, Richard." That means Richard will have a chance to give an official pitch for this new snack. The day comes, and as Richard tells it, the boardroom is filled with high-level executives, product developers, and lots of plant workers. Over 100 people are there, including the CEO. Richard's worked at the plant for years, but he's never given this kind of presentation. He's nervous. But he gets up in front of the group and tells the story of going to the grocery store, seeing the Mexican spices, eating elote, and getting his inspiration.
12:40 Dan Pashman? He even pulls out an elote from under the podium and takes a bite. Everyone's laughing, and they seem excited about this new product. At the end, one of the top execs asks, "How much market share are we talking about?" Richard doesn't know what to say. He freezes up. But then, a vision comes to him. You know, when you go to the store, the supermarkets, they're called gondolas when you see all the chips? Richard opens his arms wide, like he's reaching around all the chip racks, the gondolas, and he says... That much market share! Then Roger Enrico, the CEO, gets up and opens his arms too, just as wide as Richard's, and Roger says... Ladies and gentlemen, do you realize that we have the opportunity to go out to that much market share?
13:23 Dan Pashman? Roger Enrico is sold. Frito-Lay starts developing Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Richard says they even based the spice blend on the one he and his wife developed in their home kitchen. Richard gets promoted to machine operator at the plant, but in his spare time, he's advocating for Flamin' Hot Cheetos and pushing for a whole line of Flamin' Hot products. Finally, 10 years after pitching Flamin' Hot Cheetos, he gets promoted to corporate manager. A few years later, he becomes a vice president at PepsiCo, who owns Frito-Lay. Richard begins telling his story at company events and then more widely as a motivational speaker. And he turns it into a story about inspiration and perseverance, about climbing the corporate ladder from janitor to executive.
14:02 Speaker 09 Young people, I want to tell you today, you don't need anybody's permission to become great.
14:09 Speaker 09 And if you feel you need somebody's permission, well, I'm here to give it to you today. You have my permission to be great.
14:16 Dan Pashman? Richard's story goes viral. Upworthy posts about it with the headline, "The Incredible Tale of How a Frito-Lay Janitor Pitched His Billion Dollar Idea to the CEO." He appears in a BuzzFeed listicle titled, "12 Super Interesting Facts You'll Want to Read If You Fucking Love Cheetos." Earlier this year, Richard's memoir is published by Penguin Random House, and he consults on a biopic based on his life, directed by Ava Longoria and distributed by Fox Searchlight, a division of Disney. I should mention, we reached out to Richard multiple times, but he didn't respond to our request for an interview. While his story has been shared far and wide, according to Gustavo Ariano, it really strikes a chord with Southern California's Latino community.
14:57 Speaker 01 And you think, wow, that's really cool. One of us did that. Like, that's awesome. And so it just becomes embedded specifically with Mexican-American culture, but Latinos at large also embrace that as one of their own, even if, like, even if you're not a Mexican or Chicano, it's like, oh, cool. Like, one of our cousins invented this chip that speaks to us. That's awesome. We're, of course, we're gonna love it even more, con más gusto, like, with more joy.
15:24 Dan Pashman? After the break, twist in the story of Richard Montañez.
15:28 Speaker 07 Early 2020, we get an anonymous tip from someone saying, hey, this is fishy. You know, you should look into it more and try to talk to people who were there at the time.
15:37 Dan Pashman? That's coming up. Stick around.
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18:00 Dan Pashman? For a long time, I did not understand the point of vests. Like, why not just have a jacket? That covers your arms, too. But something clicked for me. I think I got gifted a vest and now I am obsessed with vests. And it just adds that little bit of toastiness. And I got this new Quince Packable Puffer Vest. I love that you can just squish it up and shove it in the bottom of your bag. That way you have it with you all day. If it gets a little chilly, break out the vest. I also got a Quince Down Quilted Vest. It is so soft and cozy. They make them for men and women. And as with everything you get at Quince, they focus on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. These are all timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.
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19:11 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Hashman and I have a very big, exciting announcement for you. This past November, I took a group of Sporkful fans and some others on a special trip across Italy to eat pasta, to retrace many of the steps I took on my own research trip from my cookbook, and we had so much fun and ate so, so well. We ate spaghetti alla sasina in Bari. We took a cooking class with Silvestro Silva Stori in Lece. We ate with Katie Parla in Rome. And the folks at Culinary Backstreets who organized the tour, they added some stops that I didn't even know about, that were new to me, that were incredibly delicious and also fascinating. Point is, it was so great, we're doing it again. This November, we just opened up spots. It's a small group, so space is limited. Bottom line, come eat pasta with me in Italy.
19:55 Dan Pashman? For all the details, go to culinarybackstreets.com/sporkful. Okay, back to the show.
20:04 Dan Pashman? So Sam Dean, the reporter from the LA Times we heard from earlier, gets an anonymous tip. Someone says to him, you know that story about Richard Montagnes? Well, I know how Flamin' Hot Cheetos were really invented. Sam's in LA. He knows what a big deal Flamin' Hot Cheetos are, so he decides to look into it.
20:22 Speaker 07 You know, the first things we usually do is just a quick, you know, LexisNexis archive search. It's very boring.
20:28 Dan Pashman? We'll run some music under this part, Sam, where it's like intense detective, hot on the trail journalism, gonna break the big story like in the movies. We'll add that in and then this is all gonna sound very exciting. Go on. LexisNexis, hit it.
20:42 Speaker 07 Well, yeah, so you look up the historical stuff. We saw like, okay, there's all this stuff about Flamin' Hot Cheetos in the early 90s and there's this very quickly, we found this article that was just like PR person for Frito-Lay in 92 saying, yeah, they came out of our, you know, northern division in Chicago and we rolled them out this year.
20:58 Dan Pashman? Sam starts digging deeper, talking to people who were working in Frito-Lay's northern division at the time. And he finds a very different origin story than the one that Richard Montagnes has been telling.
21:08 Speaker 07 So it starts with, you know, this guy Fred Lindsey in the field and his coworkers who are working all the time on the up and down the street market, which is like liquor stores, corner stores, gas stations, stuff like that.
21:21 Dan Pashman? At the time, Fred Lindsey was a Frito-Lay salesman from the south side of Chicago.
21:24 Speaker 07 And they see that other companies spicy products are just doing really well. They're getting beat on the, at the corner stores by these spicy things. People aren't buying Frito-Lay stuff.
21:34 Dan Pashman? So Fred says to the marketing department,
21:36 Speaker 07 we just need some spicy to compete. We're leaving money on the table. People love this. We're a giant company. We can do it too.
21:41 Dan Pashman? In 1989, Frito-Lay assigns the project to Lynn Greenfeld, a new employee at their headquarters in Plano, Texas. She visits small stores in the Midwest, works with the product design teams on branding and the flavor mix, basically every element of this new snack.
21:56 Speaker 07 And she, in her recollection and some of her coworkers, says that she came up with the name Flamin' Hot. She was like, that sounds good. And then she got sign off from a bunch of her bosses.
22:06 Dan Pashman? Sam spoke to 20 people who worked in product development for Frito-Lay in the 90s. And the consensus was that's where Flamin' Hot Cheetos came from. A salesman in the Midwest pitched the idea and a junior employee at headquarters in Texas developed it. Sam's reporting also cast doubt on the famed meeting where Richard pitched the idea of Flamin' Hot Cheetos to CEO Roger Enrico. Enrico came to Frito-Lay in 1991. At that point, Flamin' Hot Cheetos had already been in development for six months. Patty Roof, Roger Enrico's secretary, has said publicly that she does remember a phone call between Roger Enrico and Richard Montañez, either in 92 or 93. She also says Roger did take a trip to the Cucamonga plant and did specifically ask to meet Richard. But
22:50 Dan Pashman? by the time they met, Flamin' Hot Cheetos were already being sold in Southern California.
22:54 Speaker 07 I don't think that the CEO of a company would get a pitch for something that already exists and say, wow, great idea, we should talk about it.
23:03 Dan Pashman? Roger Enrico died in 2016, and Sam couldn't find any instance of him commenting about the origins of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Of the former Frito-Lay staffers he talked to who worked in product development, none of them recall a meeting like that happening, except one, Al Carey. He was a Frito-Lay exec at the time and was a mentor to Richard for decades. Richard and Al have made public appearances together, and Al says that a pitch meeting did happen, that Richard pitched a spicy snack aimed at the Latino market. But Al also says that CEO Roger Enrico wasn't in that meeting. But as Richard rises up the ranks and starts telling his story or inventing Flamin' Hot Cheetos, what's Frito-Lay saying?
23:43 Speaker 07 So Frito-Lay doesn't say much. Executives back him up, you know, say that, oh, yes, Richard is the guy who invented this. He's a great asset to us. But it seems like it's a lot of his own self-promo, as far as I can tell. But yeah, Frito-Lay doesn't say much. They just kind of let it grow.
24:00 Dan Pashman? Were they aware internally at the time that he's going around telling the story that it wasn't true?
24:06 Speaker 07 By the time he started telling the story publicly, most of the people who worked on it are gone. And then it seems like there's a lot of other people at the company who genuinely just think it's true. You know, it's like they started working there in 2008. They don't know what happened 20 years ago. Like, sure, why not?
24:21 Dan Pashman? But eventually, the people who worked on Flamin' Hot Cheetos did hear Richard's story. Lynn Greenfeld stumbled on it in 2018. She wasn't at Frito-Lay anymore, but she contacted the company about it. That triggered an internal investigation. Sam uncovered emails from that process that show Frito-Lay lawyers confirming Lynn Greenfeld's account. But Frito-Lay did not make these findings public. So Richard Montañez was still telling his story when Sam got that tip.
24:48 Dan Pashman? Sam knew he had a compelling story on his hands, but he wanted to run an early draft by Gustavo, the two are colleagues at the LA Times.
24:56 Speaker 07 And so I asked him, just, do you think I should do this? I'm a white guy. This is a thing that a lot of Latino people love, especially in Southern California. Is this worth doing?
25:06 Dan Pashman? And he says?
25:07 Speaker 07 He says, yeah. I mean, he basically says, go for it.
25:11 Speaker 01 For me, it was like, oh, my God. Sam has stumbled upon something that's just going to blow away people's minds and we better be careful.
25:20 Dan Pashman? Why should you be careful?
25:22 Speaker 01 Because people were going to be mad.
25:31 Dan Pashman? There are a few reasons why people were likely to be mad. Yes, flaming hot cheetos and their backstory were beloved parts of Latino culture in the area. But also, the LA Times has a history when it comes to covering Latino issues.
25:44 Speaker 07 The LA Times was, for many decades, a basically right wing newspaper. Has run a lot of racist stuff about Latino people in the LA area. So the LA Times does not have a great reputation among Latino readers.
25:56 Dan Pashman? Last year, Gustavo wrote an entire column about this, pointing out many of the racist ways that the LA Times has covered Latinos in California. In the 1940s, they published columns celebrating the zoot suit riots, where American servicemen beat Latinos in the streets. In the 70s, the Times published a series about Central American refugees. The headline of the lead article read, "Illegal Aliens Are Winning the Beachhead For The Third World." In the 90s, the Times endorsed the reelection of Governor Pete Wilson, who campaigned on a state ballot initiative that would bar undocumented Californians from accessing public services. So this past May, when Sam Dean's story was published in the LA Times, many people were reading it with that context in mind. Within a few hours of the article going live.
26:40 Speaker 01 People are saying like, really, LA Times? When so much crap is, so much shit is going in Southern California? That's misguided principles, misguided opportunity. Fuck this, fuck Sam Dean. Sam Dean's a white man. How dare he take down a Mexican? The, you know, the LA Times, just another example of hating on Mexicans. Trash. It became a dumpster fire very, very quickly.
27:03 Dan Pashman? One letter to the editor called Richard a hero in the Latino community and said that Sam is, quote, "not part of the culture in which this story is something of a modern legend." Others said, "With everything going on, why would the LA Times put so much effort into a piece that takes down a Mexican-American icon?" For Sam and the LA Times, this was a business story about one of the biggest public companies in the world.
27:25 Speaker 07 On a corporate level, like Frito-Lay should not be able to cover itself in glory as this place that let this janitor create this product that changed the world, when it didn't. It was a really, it was a normal, kind of boring corporate process. And you shouldn't get a little rosy glow when you eat a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos when it's not deserved.
27:47 Dan Pashman? But there were still other criticisms of Sam's story. One letter to the editor said, "You attack a Latino who actually did rise up the ranks, even though it may or may not have been exactly the way he said." This was a theme in a lot of the backlash. Yeah, maybe the story isn't totally true, but can't we just have this won? After all, white people rip off Latino food culture all the time. Some people pointed to the history at Frito-Lay in particular. In the 1930s, Charles Doolin bought the patent for Fritos from a Mexican gas station vendor in San Antonio, which is where the whole chip empire began. For decades, Doolin was celebrated as the creator of Fritos. Wasn't until the 1980s that the originator of the chip was named. Texas Monthly tracked him down in Oaxaca. His name was Gustavo Olgin. Another example, Doritos.
28:33 Speaker 01 The way Frito Lay would tell it, that one of their executives, a man named Arch West, in the 1960s, he went somewhere, to the wrong side of the tracks, and goes to a Mexican restaurant and gets this snack, basically tortilla chips with cheese, like cheese dust on them, and then he goes back to Frito Lay's and invents Doritos like that. As it turns out, it's a Mexican family, the Morales family, who had a commissary contract at Disneyland, they're the ones who invented Doritos. When I told that story of the Morales family, it had never been told before in the media. I looked through everywhere, all the newspaper clippings, never until I was able to tell it.
29:11 Dan Pashman? So Doritos are more Mexican or Mexican-American than Flamin' Hot Cheetos?
29:18 Speaker 01 Sure, 1,000%, I mean, by virtue of birth, absolutely. Doritos were invented by a Mexican family.
29:26 Dan Pashman? So the reactions to Sam's story weren't just about the story. It was about a long history. That's why it touched a nerve. And Gustavo understands that history as well as anyone. Still, as far as Flamin' Hot Cheetos is concerned...
29:41 Speaker 01 What I would say in response is, the truth is the truth. I'm sorry, maybe it's, maybe my reporter glasses blinds me to my allegiance, to any allegiance I'm supposed to have to my people, whoever the hell my people are, but truth is truth.
29:58 Dan Pashman? To be clear, much of Richard Montañez's story is true. He was a janitor who worked his way up to an executive. He did pitch spicy snacks aimed at the Latino market, some of which ended up in stores, including a chip called Sabracitas. One person Sam talked to who worked on Sabracitas said Richard's role in the creation of that snack was almost exactly what Richard claims he did for Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Frito Lay's parent company, PepsiCo, eventually acknowledged that Richard's story about inventing Flamin' Hot Cheetos wasn't true. They told Sam, quote, "We value Richard's many contributions to our company, especially his insights into Hispanic consumers. But we do not credit the creation of Flamin' Hot Cheetos or any Flamin' Hot products to him."
30:43 Dan Pashman? They called the story "An Urban Legend." After the backlash to the article, PepsiCo issued another statement, which reads in part, "We attribute the launch and success of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and other products to several people who worked at PepsiCo, including Richard Montañez." But the statement still did not give Richard credit for inventing Flamin' Hot Cheetos. When we reached out to PepsiCo for comment, they sent us the same statement and didn't respond to follow-up questions. And again, Richard Montañez did not respond to our repeated requests for an interview. But the day that the LA Times story was published, Richard posted a video on Instagram.
31:18 Speaker 09 You gotta remember this. I don't care what room you're in, there's always somebody in the room that's gonna try to steal your destiny. They may even say you never existed. I want you to do this. Write down your history. Because if you don't, somebody else will.
31:33 Dan Pashman? He also gave an interview to Variety in which he says he never documented his work and that Frito-Lay eventually cut him out of the process for developing Flamin' Hot Cheetos. All this news broke just as production was wrapping on Flamin' Hot, the film about Richard's life. Frito-Lay was involved in the production, according to emails Sam obtained. But once his article came out...
31:52 Speaker 07 Frito-Lay now has said that they've cut ties with the movie, will not be supporting it.
31:56 Dan Pashman? But Sam is skeptical. After all, the film is based on a Frito-Lay product.
32:01 Speaker 07 The fact that they're prominently showing the product name in the movie means that Frito-Lay is still backing it.
32:05 Dan Pashman? Well, it'll be interesting. You know, like you often see movie trailers that'll say, "Based on a true story, inspired by a true story, inspired by real events."
32:13 Speaker 07 Right.
32:13 Dan Pashman? There's different sort of like phrases that they use, I think, depending on how much poetic license they've taken.
32:18 Speaker 07 There was a great article, one of the follows, that after my piece published, was a Variety story about the movie. And the screenwriter, I think his line was, "It's true enough."
32:28 Speaker 07 He was like, "As far as I'm concerned, it's true enough."
32:41 Dan Pashman? That's Sam Dean, business reporter at the LA Times. You also heard Gustavo Ariano, a columnist for the LA Times and author of the book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. We'll have a link to Sam's article and Gustavo's column on Flamin' Hot Cheetos on our show page at sporkful.com. This show is produced by me along with senior producer- Emma Morgenstern. And producer- Andres O'Hara. Our editor is- Tracy Samuelson. The show is mixed by- Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Peter Clowney and Daisy Rosario. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
33:20 Speaker 12 This is Paul from Escovina, California, reminding you to eat more, eat better, eat more better.
33:37 Dan Pashman? This reheat was produced by- Gianna Palmer. The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer- Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer- Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
34:26 Speaker 13 This podcast is supported by Nurtac ODT, Remedy Pant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time, and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtac. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtac can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtac is right for you, because your time is for you, not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nertac ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur. Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain, or color changes in fingers
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