Nostalgic as Hot Pockets might make you, do you really know anything about your favorite
childhood snack aside from that earworm jingle?
From its non-American roots, to the super-gross reason they were once recalled, and even a
hack to heat them perfectly, here's the untold truth of Hot Pockets.
You might think that Hot Pockets, with their calzone-like appearance and occasionally unorthodox
pizza fillings, may have been invented by Italians or Italian-Americans, but you would
be wrong.
This oh-so-American staple, which has been gracing freezers for decades, was invented
by two Iranian immigrants.
We wouldn't have the many variations of Hot Pockets today had it not been for Jewish Iranian
brothers Paul and David Merage, who immigrated to the United States from Tehran.
In 1977, the Merage brothers founded Chef America Inc. and set out to create a portable
sandwich with a dough that would actually retain its crispiness after being frozen,
then warmed up in a few minutes in the microwave.
Their creation, which debuted in 1980, was called the Tastywich, but it didn't last long
with its original name.
By 1983, after some recipe tweaking, the Tastywich had a new moniker, and Hot Pockets officially
hit the market.
Why don't more people know this iconic snack's true origins?
For starters, Chef America was sold to Nestle in 2002, and most of us probably associate
Hot Pockets with the company that owns other very American brands, like Gerber, Toll House,
and Stouffer's.
Nestle, the company that's owned and produced Hot Pockets since 2002, makes quality a big
part of their brand messaging.
Even when it comes to things like microwavable frozen snacks, it's all about high quality
ingredients.
But you're probably thinking, "Come on, we're talking about Hot Pockets here...how great
can the quality of those ingredients really be?"
The answer might surprise you.
In an effort to appeal to the millennial demographic who care about the quality of their food,
the frozen snack underwent some recipe changes in 2013 as part of the "Better Taste.
Better Quality" campaign.
The company touted new and improved ingredients including premium meats, real cheese sourced
from dairy farmers in Wisconsin, bread baked fresh daily, and sauce made from scratch.
That's all a bit fancier than you'd expect from a Hot Pocket, right?
Another Hot Pocket fact that may surprise you?
Many of the products boast 10 grams or more of protein.
That means that instead of choking down a chalky protein shake, you can chow down on
a Hot Pocket, with all its millennial-friendly ingredients, and feel perfectly fine about
your choice.
After the 2013 millennial grab, Hot Pockets again underwent some recipe tweaks, this time
in an effort to gain a "healthier" reputation.
Because let's be honest, even with 10 grams of protein each and 100 percent real cheese,
it can still feel like you're making a slightly poor life decision when you eat three Hot
Pockets for lunch.
The 2015 recipe revamp meant removing artificial flavors and cutting the sodium by 10 percent,
changes that Nestle said would not affect that Hot Pocket taste we all know and love.
The reformulation makes sense.
In a time when consumers are forcing fast food companies to provide healthier options,
brands selling frozen, pre-made fare simply need to follow suit.
It's probably not a coincidence that the same year, Forbes reported that 88 percent of consumers
polled said they were willing to pay more for healthier food.
Plus, all demographics in the polling preferred foods with no artificial coloring or flavors.
So really, Hot Pockets had no choice but to make their product appear healthier.
It's what the market wanted.
Sometimes, a Hot Pocket craving strikes.
It's usually around midnight, and there's usually a fair amount of alcohol involved,
but suddenly the need for a Hot Pocket is undeniable.
Finding no stock in the freezer, you make the responsible decision to send a sober friend
out to make the Hot Pockets run.
But what if they don't return with the goods?
Would it drive you to kill?
A lack of Hot Pockets is apparently what made one man snap in June of 2016.
Nathaniel Mathis had dispatched his sister and her boyfriend to pick up some frozen snacks,
but the store was sold out of his requested pepperoni Hot Pockets.
They called Mathis to break the bad news, and by the time they returned home empty-handed,
he was still livid.
According to witness reports, Mathis approached the passenger side of his sister's car and
shot her boyfriend eight times.
He ran, but stopped to ask another witness to relay a message to his sister.
According to reports, Mathis said:
"I just snapped."
Mathis was arrested, charged with killing the man, and sentenced to life in prison plus
10 years, where he will presumably not be able to satisfy his original Hot Pockets craving.
If you haven't blistered the skin on the roof of your mouth and burned off all your taste
buds by biting into a Hot Pocket with its lava-like tomato sauce, have you even lived?
"'Will it burn my mouth?'
'It'll destroy your mouth.
Everything'll taste like rubber for a month.'"
The thing is, to get the middle of the Hot Pocket hot enough, you've got to heat it for
so long that the ends are basically full of boiling filling.
We all know very well how a Hot Pockets experience will end, but it turns out it doesn't have
to be that way.
According to Lifehacker, a since-deleted Reddit thread offered a solution that allows you
to redistribute all that hot filling.
Start by microwaving your hot pocket for 75 percent of the recommended cooking time.
Then, take the Hot Pocket out, carefully hold it at both ends, and then shake it.
That makes some of the hot filling at the ends flow into the middle where the pocket
is coldest.
"Hot Pockets!"
Then, microwave it the rest of the way.
Problem solved.
You'll probably still obliterate the inside of your mouth, but maybe they'll be first
degree burns instead of third.
Or, you could just exercise a little patience and let the thing cool.
This probably isn't the kind of press Nestle ideally wants for Hot Pockets.
But if it's really true that any PR is good PR, having a celebrity mention having used
your product a whole lot while promoting a movie isn't such a bad thing.
For the 2015 film The End of the Tour, Jason Segel played acclaimed writer David Foster
Wallace, who happened to be a few pounds heavier than the actor.
So, in an effort to pack a whopping 40 pounds onto his frame, and fast, Segel turned to
"the Hot Pocket diet."
During an appearance on Live with Kelly and Michael, Segel explained his weight gain method,
and noted that the Hot Pockets were a last resort.
With just two weeks left to prepare for his role in the film, Segel had to keep packing
on the pounds, and decided the best way to do that was eating two Hot Pockets every three
hours.
He didn't reveal his favorite flavor, unfortunately.
Food recalls happen all the time, whether it's due to problems with product packaging
or the presence of bacteria.
We typically just toss those recalled items out and go on with our day.
But something that's recalled because it's "unfit for human food"?
That'll make you think twice about a product, and that's exactly why Hot Pockets were recalled
in 2014, according to CNBC.
The issue stemmed from 8.7 million pounds of Rancho Feeding Corp's beef, which was used
in some varieties of Hot Pockets.
That beef was recalled by the FDA because the company processed "diseased and unsound
animals," which is definitely enough to make you think twice about your shopping selections.
Thankfully, the recall only affected the Philly Steak flavor, which meant we could all go
on eating Pepperoni Pizza Hot Pockets to our heart's content.
But will you ever look at Croissant Crust Philly Steak and Cheese Hot Pockets the same
way again?
When news broke that well-to-do parents had been caught paying for their children to be
admitted to some of the top schools in the country, people were understandably outraged.
Names like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman were most commonly talked about, but in February
2020, another sentence was announced.
Michelle Janavs, heiress to the Hot Pockets fortune and a former executive for the company,
was sentenced to five months in jail for paying a total of $300,000 to get one of her daughters
into the University of Southern California.
"Her family created Hot Pockets, and now she might go to prison, so at least the food will
be an upgrade."
According to CNN, Janavs pleaded guilty to all the charges against her.
Her sentence included a $250,000 fine and two years supervised release after her five
months of jail time.
No matter how many times you've nuked a Hot Pocket, it still feels like something magical
happened when you pull one out the microwave.
Microwaves are known for making things soggy, but when you slide the Hot Pocket out of its
sleeve, you discover that its crust has actually crisped up.
How the heck does it do that?
That magical crisping sleeve actually has a name: a susceptor.
According to HowStuffWorks, it's not really magic that makes this seemingly simple cardboard
and metal-laminated invention work.
It's actually all a matter of converted energy.
While the microwave is running, the susceptor, quote, "converts microwave energy to radiant
heat and allows the food to brown."
As luck would have it, the first susceptor was patented in 1981, just in time for the
Merage brothers to use it in their quest for a sandwich with bread that would keep its
crispy texture in the microwave.
For the perfect Hot Pocket heating experience, Nestle recommends using a paper plate under
the crisping sleeve, presumably so that a ceramic plate doesn't absorb any of the energy
the Hot Pocket needs to be its crispy best.
Even with the amazing incredible crisping sleeve, and even with the internet's best
frozen food microwave hacks, it seems like Hot Pockets never heat to the same temperature
throughout.
It's either the right temperature on the outside, but the middle is still icy, or it's approximately
1,000 degrees on the outside and the middle is only just hot enough.
Or, and this one's the most fun, the whole crispy concoction is approximately 2,000 degrees,
with that standard-issue molten middle.
Why do you have to be like this, Hot Pockets?
Apparently, there is a scientific explanation.
Microwaves don't heat up frozen water molecules, or, you know, ice, as efficiently as regular
old unfrozen water molecules.
So as each layer of icy molecules on the surface of the Hot Pocket crust melts into water,
it's free to heat up.
Then it's onto the next layer.
This continues, with each previous already-heated layer getting hotter and hotter and hotter.
That explains why you can bite into a still-frozen-in-the-middle Hot Pocket while simultaneously burning off
your tongue.
Thanks, science!
"Recently, they introduced the breakfast Hot Pocket, finally!
I can't think of any better way to start the day!"
At this point, the celebrity who is usually most associated with Hot Pockets isn't someone
who created them, or perfected them, or even sold them.
It's someone who made fun of them: comedian Jim Gaffigan, whose riffs on food and eating
have made him an extremely popular stand-up performer.
In his 2005 comedy special Beyond the Pale, Gaffigan took the freezer aisle favorite to
task, saying that he was moving slow that night because he'd had a Hot Pocket for dinner.
"I was lookin' at a box of Hot Pockets, they have a warning printed on the side.
'Warning, you just bought Hot Pockets!'"
Gaffigan went on to riff on everything from the very concept of the dish to the consistency
to the very idea of a vegetarian Hot Pocket.
"For those of us who don't want to eat meat, but still would like diarrhea.
Hot Pocket!"
He did admit to buying the product, but also concluded he was never glad he ate one.
Before he was done, Gaffigan even took the snack's famous jingle to task.
"'What do you got so far, Bill?'
'Uh-uh…Hot Pocket.'
'That's good, that's very good.'"
All in all, not the best review of the product, but people sure do connect Hot Pockets with
Jim Gaffigan, so that's got to be worth something for the brand, right?
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