I feel like Doritos are the foundation of Junk Food Betty. The first two junk food reviews I ever did were both from the Doritos Late Night line. I posted them on my LiveJournal for my dozens tens few interested friends to read. I’d been knocking around the idea of creating a junk food review site for quite a while, and the encouragement I received from those two reviews finally motivated me to make it happen.

Heck, my very first review on Junk Food Betty was for Doritos Flavor Shots, and in the 2+ years I’ve been writing here, I’ve reviewed 11 different Doritos flavors. Cut me open and I bleed bright orange flavor powder.

Given all that, I obviously owe a debt of gratitude to Arch Clark West, the man who created Doritos. He got the inspiration while vacationing in San Diego, where he happened upon a small shack serving up fried corn tortilla chips. He took the idea back to what was then known as the Frito Company, and decided to spice the chips up a little with some seasoning. And thus, in 1964, the first flavor of Doritos, Taco Flavor, was born. (There’s a bit of controversy on what flavor actually came first, but you can read my review of the recently revived Taco Doritos here.)

Mr. West died on September 20^th in Dallas at the respectable age of 97, and his funeral will take place in Dallas on October 1^st. According to West’s daughter, those attending will have the opportunity to throw chips into the grave with West’s urn.

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate send-off.

Sources: The New York Times, Phoenix New Times