Cheetos Pizzerini

Today I will introduce for your pleasure a truly a pan-European delicy-Cheetos Pizzerini are parently manufactured in Poland, but the text in the back is additionally written Lithuania, Latvian, Estonian, Hungarian, and Czech!  Just like the Tunisian take on Sun Chips, the Cheetos brand in Eastern Europe retains the same recognizable imagery and symbols (Chester seems spry and cool and has apparently so far avoided succumbing to Feline Infectuious Peritonitis, the ebola-virus of cheetah-kind), but the finished product bears only coincidental resemblance to any Cheetos you have encountered in the United States despite the orange Cheetah on the packaging.

"Stocky leapords" is a phrase you will
only encounter when Cheetahs take
over the world. And they will.  Oh yes,
they will...

Now, curiously, the Polish word for ‘Cheetah’ is gepard- you guessed it, the same as the word for leopard.  But wait a minute, aren’t those the same thing?  In fact, the cheetah has a smaller body and longer tail (speed record for an animal moving on land, yo- 105 kilometers an hour in your tasty, tasty gazelle-like face), tear-strike lines running from its eyes to the chin for the scary-licious kabuki-samurai I’m-going-to-murderize-you-while-crying look, and bigger spots.

Nothing says "I'm going to slaughter you so
hard I need to start weeping tears in advance
 in my horror of the deed" then some black
 lipstick and eyeliner with tear trails,
 as Cheetahs and Abyssal Exalted
know well...

Rather than the hard and crunchy cheese fingers Americans have come to expect, Cheetos Pizzerini are shaped more like three dimensional hearts or lozenges, relatively large in size (about an 1” in across) and with a much softer and less dense corn-puff base.  Naturally, they are coated with a a pretty red tomato-basil/pizza seasoning colored with occasional flecks of green that tastes rather like Pizza Combos.  (My theory is that professional flavorists have imitated the likes of animated sitcoms, radical philosophers, and Shrek movies and become predominantly self-referential.) 

Note that these are ovoid in shape rather than flat,
like the Rebel transports escaping from Hoth.

As a complete package it’s pretty decent- the tomato basil flavoring is reasonably tasty, even though it wasn’t quite strong enough for my liking, and the soft texture of the corn puffs invites rapid munching, though I’m afraid it’s not quite as fun as the crunchiness of real Cheetos nor as densely textured as classic Cheese Curls.

Still, Polish Cheetos are an entertaining departure from regular American products for jaded chip-eaters, and I think you can’t go wrong trying these out just to see how differently a company will spin the brand name to suit what are presumably local tastes.

Stars: 2½

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Competent pizza-like flavoring

- Soft corn-puff lozenges are relatively novel and highly munchable

Cons:

- Not quite as good as the original Cheetos recipe

- Stronger flavoring would have been welcome