 Even if you've never tried a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos, you probably know they exist, and you probably know they're extremely spicy. The fan culture around Flaming Hot Cheetos has helped these fiery cheese pups gain widespread notoriety, survive school bands, media panic, and an origin story to buckle. Fans have imbued meaning and value into Flaming Hot Cheetos, and they've become ingrained in pop culture. Food nannies looking to snatch them from our hands don't stand a chance. They're the outlaw snack that may be more American than apple pie. My name is Tiersa Farrah, and I am the owner, executive chef, along with my husband of Tiersa's Mexican Cafe, and we are in what I call the living room of my little Casita Mexicana restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, Chinatown, downtown, whatever you guys want to call it. Tiersa Farrah started her cafe because she wanted to be her own boss. Her menu is inspired by her experience growing up in Los Angeles. An LA girl with Mexican roots, you know, so that's what you're going to find here is my take on the LA flavors and the Mexican scene growing up in a house that's literally divided. My dad was born in Mexico, and my mom is an LA native herself. One of the ingredients in Farrah's dishes, Flaming Hot Cheetos, which she sprinkles on a variety of dishes, from sopes to nachos to esquites, she first encountered the snack in high school. Either before school or after school, you were going to go get a bag of chips. And the only one you were going to get was Flaming Hot. It's just kind of this kooky tradition, even though we're like, why are we eating this? We just can't stop. Part of the lore around Flaming Hot Cheetos was the dynamic story of their self-proclaimed inventor, Richard Montanez. What would happen if I put chile on a cheeto? Montanez said he was working as a janitor at Frito-Lay when he said he dreamed up the idea of a spicy version of the company's famous cheese puffs. That led to a meeting with Frito-Lay's president, and that impulse decision would become a billion-dollar snack. The story went viral. Montanez, a Mexican-American, earned legend status, and was invited to give motivational speeches at corporate events for Walmart, Target, and Harvard. He became a hero in the Mexican-American community, and his rise was considered an example of the American dream fulfilled. Journalists repeated the story without bothering to investigate its veracity. Montanez chronicled his story in a 2021 book, and it's even being made into a movie by actress and producer Eva Longoria. Turns out that story probably isn't true. The Times quoted several former Frito-Lay employees as saying he had nothing to do with Flamin' Hot Cheetos and that the product was created by a team in 1989 based out of Texas. Montanez started taking credit for their creation in the early 2000s, almost two decades after they were invented. Montanez and his fans still maintained that he was the true inventor. The best way to destroy a positive message is to destroy the messenger. Never allow that to happen. So what if the Flamin' Hot Cheetos origin story is a fairy tale? It's part of the folklore. What's most interesting about these spicy cheese puffs aren't what actually happened at Frito-Lay, but how consumers reimagined a corporate snack with a Mexican twist into something uniquely American. Flamin' Hot Cheetos are in rap songs, YouTube and TikTok videos, clothing and jewelry, and a variety of dishes with roots all over the world. Even Katy Perry wore a Flamin' Hot Cheeto outfit with matching purse to a Halloween party. The fan culture around Flamin' Hot Cheetos has been perplexing to food nannies intent on controlling our consumption of artificial dyes and high-calorie cornmeal. The rise of Flamin' Hot Cheetos appeared on American store shelves in the early 90s. They came to symbolize the poor eating habits of America's youth. The panic intensified with the rise of social media. Flamin' Hot Cheetos now banned actually in many schools around the country. There were claims that kids were showing up at doctor's offices with heartburn and red stool. The ban just seems to make the snacks more tempting. Flamin' Hot Cheetos had already permeated pop culture. They love the spiciness, the crunch, the illicit nature of the snacks. Today YouTube creators unintentionally mock the calorie intake concerns of school administrators and dietitians. Here, Matt Stoney takes the 10,000 calorie Flamin' Hot Cheetos challenge. The snacks started appearing in places its creators never dreamt of. On Etsy there are Flamin' Hot Cheetos earrings, false eyelashes and nails, shoes, clothing, and even household items. I almost bought the leggings. There were some leggings I wanted. So bad. But I think they sold out or something. I'm still hopeful for their future. Their extreme spiciness is used as a metaphor for political convictions and expressions of individual power. This pin with Flamin' Hot Cheetos colors and style features the name chingona, Spanish slang for badass woman. The cultural remixing is also happening with food. It's not just a flavor. It's a memory. It's a, like, occasion. You just flash back to all the times you eat Flamin' Hot. We have an esquite, which is a corn that we call a miso corning. With the butter, the mayonnaise, the cotija cheese, lime chili powder, and then if you want to get Flamin' Hot, we put crushed Flamin' Hot right on top and it takes you to nostalgia heaven. I'm going to be eating hot chero sushi. I did make these my own. Not the sushi though, but like the hot chero on the sushi. Here YouTube creator Wendy from the Wendy's Eating Show channel is Mexicana eating a Japanese dish and taking part in a Korean trend on YouTube called a mukbang, a video where someone eats food and talks to the audience about it. You guys want to know why I picked these, these sushi rolls because they have cream cheese in the middle and hot cheetos and cream cheese also go together like peanut butter and jam, so. Eating hot cheetos are deeply American. They give us the opportunity to engage with cultures that are different from our own or allow us to define new, surprising, and dynamic ways to be. Love comes in all flavors and all, you know, it's just the different chip. The love story that I'm telling is you can be as different as you want to be or non-traditional as you want to be and still make delicious, yummy food.