No fan of fiction, when there are so many facts to be learned, I usually avoid theme parks built around cartoon characters and fairytale princes and princesses, although I will be in line as soon as Itchy & ScratchyLand opens.But there is something good in everything, even though sometimes you have to look beyond the castles to see what that is. For instance, Vaseline, the first-aid kit in a jar, is simply the byproduct of oil refining. Guys who worked those pumps drawing crude oil out of the ground found this gunky substance around the base of the pump and noticed that when they removed it, their hands wound up all smooth and creamy and dreamy.
Anyway. We can thank Disneyland in California for...(drum roll....) Doritos!
And here's why. Right after they opened The House Built For A Mouse in 1955, Elmer Doolin, inventor of Fritos, opened Casa de Fritos, a Mexican restaurant, in Frontierland. It served the food now called Tex-Mex: tamales, chile, Frito pie, enchiladas and the "Ta-Cup," essentially a taco in a Fritos shell (That sounds great!!!!)
Somewhere along the line, a salesman for the Fritos company visited the Casa and noticed that kitchen staff was throwing out the broken taco shells.
American industry abhors waste of this sort. Next time you fire up the charcoal grill, notice the Kingsford label on the charcoal bag. E.G. Kingsford was a relative of Henry Ford who saw wood that used in shipping crates for Ford auto parts being tossed out, and figured a way to turn them into charcoal so that you could have a nice steak this Saturday night.
They started serving those broken chips along with taco salads, re-naming something they used to throw away as "Doritos," Spanish for "little pieces of gold." Soon, the demand for Doritos outgrew the demand for taco shells, and business is thriving.
Which one does Mickey like most?
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