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“WHAT IS THE BEST CHEESE CRACKER” is not really a question reasonable people care about … or is it, or at least: should it be? Because come on people: the point is to bring your mindful attentiveness to everything. As the man said, the unexamined life just ain’t worth living. (So for example we plan to later this summer evaluate: air, the best foot to put more weight on depending on situation, and why mockingbirds are the absolute worst.)

Why, now, cheese crackers? Well why not, for one. But for two – certainly in our grocery store sojourns you’ve noticed a certain…variety creep. This first happened with Doritos, way back when we flew missions to space by setting off bombs beneath little people-capsules and Keith Hernandez was still smoking cigs in the dugout between innings: back then, some corporate Frito Lay lunatic thought that Nacho Cheese Doritos weren’t perfection enough (!) and that making chips that smell of dirty socks and taste of fake sour cream and fake chives and fake ranch was somehow a good idea.

Now we have variety everywhere:

Triscuits. Oreos.

Kettle Chips. Pringles. IPAs.

Democratic presidential candidates:

Everyone says that variety is the spice of life – but if everything is varied, then nothing is varied, and variety itself becomes routine, and even it becomes boring.

Our quest here today: to see if cheese cracker variety is at all a good thing … and if so, why.

Methodology:

Try a lot of different cheese crackers, evaluating on a scale of -3 through +3 in four categories: Saltiness, Cheesiness, Texture, and Gimmickry (this last meaning: how successful the gimmick, if gimmick there be).

Rules:

As the original Cheez-Its were 1×1 inch squares, no other shape is allowed. No ‘grooves,’ no ‘snapd’s,’ no snack mixes, no ‘duos’ – just classics and flavor varieties of classics.

This rule led us to taste a provost’s dozen (that’s eleven, or, less than you rightfully expect).

The List! (with repeated interruptions):

Bottom Tier: Stinky Cheeses

#11. Cheese Nips

Nutrition stats:           210 mg Sodium. 6%/1.5 g Saturated Fat.

Price:                           $2.60 for a standard 11.5oz box.

Tasting notes:             “dusty, crumbly, sort of awful” “No.”

Cumulative Score:      -4

Cheese Nips are Cheeze-Its long-standing rival—the Washington Generals to Cheez-Its Lakers, the Craig Kilborn to Cheez-Its Jon Stewart. They’ve been around forever. No one knows why.  Also: don’t eat them.

#10. Annie’s Organic

Nutrition stats:          250 mg Sodium. 4%/1 g Saturated Fat.

Price:                           $2.50-$4.00 for a non-standard 7.5 oz box.

Tasting notes:            “musty” “weird sawdust taste”

Cumulative Score:     -3

Why would anyone want to eat organic junk food?

#9. Better Cheddars

Nutrition:

Price:

Tasting notes:             “soft, in all the ways” “more like a cracker”

Cumulative Score:      -2

Round = Disqualified.

Factoid 1: Nabisco has basically no web presence—no one is proud of Cheese Nips, which, again, raises the question: Why do they still exist? Do they know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried? Were they present in Roswell in 1947?

Nabisco does have Snackworks.com, an amazingly hilarious interactive website that is annoying to use and features, as best we can tell, terrible recipes featuring Nabisco ingredients (note the “Buffalo Chicken Pull-apart TRISCUIT “Pizza””):

Factoid 2: The first Cheez-It was created in 1921 by The Green & Green Company at the standard size of 1 inch by 1 inch. On Cheezit.com’s ‘About’ page, you can find weird cultural references to Cheez-Its in time: like:

“1929: Stock Market Crash induces widespread panic. People rush to local stores to stock up on Cheez-It.”

That’s objectively unfunny. Get some word talent, Cheez-It. Honor thy product.

Third Tier: Cheese, Stop Trying So Hard

#8. Cheez-It Extra Toasty

Nutrition stats:          230 mg Sodium. 6%/1.5 g Saturated Fat.

Price:                           $2.50-$4.00 for a standard box.

Tasting notes:            “burnt flavor overwhelms the cheese” “burnt cheese”

Cumulative Score:     +1

We’ll let the website description do the work here:

You asked. We toasted. After years of fan requests for an extra toasty Cheez-It, the wait is finally over. So here it is – a full box of our delicious Cheez-It® Extra Toasty Crackers, and you made it happen.

Well done, fellow Cheez-It fans … Well. Done.

#7. Cheez-It Cheddar Jack

Nutrition stats:          270 mg Sodium. 10%/2 g Saturated Fat.

Price:                           $2.50-$4.00 for a standard box.

Tasting notes:            “sour cream?” “weird cheesy; like salsa?”

Cumulative Score:      +1

The cheesy, crunchy, satisfaction of Monterey Jack and Cheddar Cheese combined!

#6. Cheez-It Hot & Spicy

Nutrition stats:          220 mg Sodium. 10%/2g Saturated fat.

Price:                           $2.50-$4.00 a box.

Tasting notes:             “low, consistent heat” “more spice than cheese”

Cumulative score:      +1

These are actually … pretty good. Every other cracker to this point tastes like an imitation of Cheez-It Original, but these taste different— not worse, not better, they’re their own cracker.

That said, not everyone is thrilled about recent changes:

#5. Cheez-It Pepper Jack

Nutrition info:           270 mg Sodium, 8%/1.5 g Saturated fat.

Price:                           $2.50-$4.00 a box.

Tasting notes:            “nice green heat; distinct” “spicy green pepper”

Cumulative score:     +1

Similar in their uniqueness to Hot & Spicy, these are also a well-defined alternative.

More Factoids Learned during this Amazing Project

• Apparently there is, somewhere in this world, a Queso Fundido Cheez-It.
• Also: Cheese Pizza! WANT IT.
• “These curves are 100% real, people.” – cracker tagline.
• Cheez-It has a pretty big web presence: a sponsored college football bowl (really: “Cheez-It and bowls belong together”), a Twitter feed, a Facebook page. It’s mostly dull product promotion … and, say, if you contact them through social media to ask certain questions about certain claims, they entirely ignore you:

So: Extra Toasty is the #1 requested Cheez-It.
& Cheese Pizza is the #1 winning Cheeze-It Flavor.

Q for @cheezit: these requests and votes – how, now? What’s the data/vote totals? Sincere questions! Inquiring minds. Thx!

— Sean Bernard (@fakeseanbernard) June 13, 2019

­­­

• Also, on the Cheez-It website, there is a “Contact us by email” link. If you click this link, you’ll find a drop-down menu with five default options. The fifth default option is “Coupon Request.” If you click “Coupon Request,” this notification comes up:

(This is now a part of your life, too.)

Second Tier: Surprise Budget Options

#4. Savoritz (Aldi brand)

Nutrition info:            230 mg Sodium, 5%/1 g Saturated fat.

Price:                           $1.39 a standard box.

Tasting notes:             “muted” “four of my crackers were deformed”

Cumulative score:     +1

$1.39 a box!!!!

#3. Savoritz Reduced Fat

Nutrition info:           250 mg Sodium, 3%/1g Saturated fat.

Price:                           $1.79/box.

Tasting notes:            “slight sweetness” “surprisingly a fan”

Cumulative score:     +2*

(We’re trying to honor the many taste-testers who took part in this rigorous project. So we’re correctly listing the +2 score for Reduced Fat Savoritz. But: no. Reduced fat is not better than the original version. Moving on.)

Overall: we really like Aldi, Trader’s Joe’s sibling nemesis grocery store. You never know what you’re going to find at Aldi, as they stock bizarre seasonal or out-of-season products. Hedge trimmer? Sure! Dog-poo bags? Perfect! Axe-throwing backyard game? What fun!

But as much as we like it, Aldi is probably bad for the world—basically, they take original things and make them cheaper. Just like America! We took distilled liquor; we made cocktails. We took literature; we made comic books. We took symphonies; we made this.

            America: the Aldi of the World.

Runner-Up: This One’s Pretty Gouda!

#2. Cheez-It White Cheddar

Nutrition info:           210mg Sodium, 8%/2 g Saturated fat.

Price:                           $2.50-$4.00 a box.

Tasting notes:            “lightly powdered” “cheese-forward”

Cumulative score:     +3

Always amazing. Always a fan favorite. The secret behind the delicious goodness of Cheez-It® White Cheddar Crackers is really rather simple: They’re made with 100% real cheddar cheese!

Before we move on to our surprise winner, an observation: all these cheese cracker brands & snack companies are very, very keen on insisting that they feature “100% real cheese” in the crackers. Who gives a shit about real cheese in stupid little crackers? I mean: if you want real cheese, wouldn’t you rather go to the Cheese Cave and pick up some Brillat Savarin? I think the packaging bias regarding cheese authenticity is misplaced – and it actually takes the place of what could be clever branding, what could reach past empty phrasings (‘natural ingredients,’ etc) and communicate in a meaningful way with customers. Just a thought.

The Big Cheese

#1. Cheez-It Original Baked Snack Crackers

Nutrition info:           210mg Sodium, 8%/2 g Saturated fat.

Price:                           $2.50-$4.00 a box.

Tasting notes:            “just tastes right” “sharp, cheesy, salty”

Cumulative score:     +5

The one. The only. (SIC!!!!) The Original. It’s the iconic Cheez-It flavor you know and love. The square shape, the rigid edges and that hole in the middle – everything about this baked snack cracker is the real deal, especially the cheese.

Takeaways

So here we are, back at the beginning: liking the thing we liked when all this began. Are we Campbellian heroes and heroines? Possibly. To our real question and quest: Does variety matter?

            Listen: variety is variety: it gives you something else to do. Is it better? Not in and of itself, no … but unlike cheese crackers, existence isn’t vacuum-sealed, and neither is variety: with cheese crackers and with life, it’s variety that makes you love again the thing you always loved, only a little more than you already did.

Friday, June 8th | Hilltop’s Jamaican Market & Restaurant | 1061 E. Holt Ave, Pomona, CA 91767

We are sad. We are sad. We are sad.

     And, still, hungry. Today: comfort food. Early afternoon, we take White Avenue down to Holt (odd avenue-on-avenue action), and there hook eastward on Holt, passing many of the diverse, independent, and strange shops and restaurants Pomona has to offer. (Someone should really write up Holt, one block at a time, cataloging all its offerings, all the people to be seen.)

     Past Reservoir, we flip a u-turn and park in front of Hilltop’s (parking in the back; learn from our mistakes). We walk into a hybrid market/restaurant: one half market, really an eight-foot-wide island of back-to-back shelves and four refrigerators fat with Jamaican cooking staples – curries, jerks, cornmeal, plantains, hot sauces. A cash register sits between the market and the other half, the restaurant, an indoor-thatched roof bar above a smoothie stand in the back and, in the front and middle, about eight tables seating 2-4 people each. Fans turn. The outside day is hot and oppressive; in here, the air is cool. Jamaican décor decorates on the walls (Usain Bolt, check; no bobsledding team: fine).  An older couple is quietly finishing their meal. A talk show plays on a wall-mounted flatscreen TV. A woman at the register welcomes us, gives her recommendations, then takes our orders and directs us to sit.

     We take turns browsing the market as we wait for our food. The wait isn’t long; the curried items at Hilltop’s are slow cooked, so they’re already prepared in the back kitchen. We’ve ordered a curry chicken pattie ($2.75), a small curry goat ($13; sides: plantains, bean/rice mix, cabbage and vegetables, goat, and a festival, essentially a free-form cornmeal donut), and a small jerk chicken ($12.95; same sides save steamed spinach in place of the cabbage mix).

     First the pattie: we’ve had pot pies. We’ve had Welsh pasties. We’ve had meat pies, empanadas, samosas, and other types of stew-filled breads. The curry chicken pattie at Hilltop’s is the best we’ve ever had. The crust is beautifully layered despite its thinness, and the curry chicken stew, spread evenly throughout the pattie, is tender, spiced strongly, and delicious.

 It gets better from there. The curry goat comes in a dense, rich, clove-tinged broth and is fork-off-the-bone tender; there’s not a hint of gaminess. The festival is delightfully crunchy/soft/sweet, the plantains are cooked to their perfect dense gumminess, and the inoffensive bean/rice mix makes for a nice gravy-soak (the cabbage is … well, get the ethereal spinach). Then the jerk chicken. It’s unbelievable: peppery, spicy, sweet, and tangy, every bite a slow spread of complex and harmonized flavors. It is, honestly, one of the most flavorful dishes we’ve had.

     The TV plays. Other customers come for groceries, for take-out. We eat. The woman checks in on us, takes care of us. The cook comes out and thanks us. We, of course, thank him.

     And we feel grateful, nourished, and, at least a little, better.

Go Back <— Tearing into the Local Stew

Tuesday, June 12th | Mariscos Jalisco | 753 E. Holt Ave, Pomona, CA 91767

We wonder if part of this recent sad poke fad* is that in eating fresh seafood, there’s a sense of nourishment, of eating (supposedly) tasty food, guilt-free. Maybe, too, there’s a feeling of being at one with Pacific Islanders and their cultural legacies in much the same racist way that early white Americans romanticized the noble savage. We wonder if possibly – bear with us – there is, as we (well, you) dip our (your) spoons into the bowl of poke, a slow unlidding within (y)our reptilian minds, old parts now awakening, that ancient limning of shore and sea, alert for a darting lunch of clean-flavored, palate-cleansing fish flesh. Perhaps lesser motives are involved: after all, a poke bowl is way cheaper than good sushi. Plus: ordering a poke bowl is like ordering at Chipotle! So many options, and, bro, you get to curate your meal! (Curation, after all, is very much what life is about in this country, this century.)
    We do not, today, choose to dine at a poke bowl place. Instead we opt for what will certainly be the most risky of our let’s-eat-at-an-unknown-restaurant summer journey: Mariscos Jalisco. Just a few months’ old, this small-menued seafood place is on Holt in Pomona, a few blocks past our last stop, Hilltop’s.** This afternoon, we look at each other and think: should we go crazy and take a chance? Lunch at Mariscos Jalisco? Why not? 
    We fill our water bottles first (heads up: no free water), then make the drive to Pomona, using the La Verne–>San Antonio–>Holt route, faster if less interesting than White–>Holt (we’re hungry, is the thing). We pull in, park, step to the counter. A new menu greets as, and we see they’ve also recently added a credit card payment option (less than $10 incurs a 75¢ charge; even $10+, cash is the establishment-friendly way to go, folks). We daringly order four tacos dorados de camarones ($2.25 each). Not your average fish or shrimp taco, these tacos are filled with a mix of chopped shrimp, tomato, peppers, maybe a few things more, then fried so that the tortilla and the outer edge of the filling brown and crisp. The tacos are laid flat on a plate and spooned over with a simple but delicious salsa (tomato, chile, cilantro, chopped cabbage), and then the whole thing is overlaid with slices of avocado. 

• 

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Q: Doesn’t that salsa make the crispy shell mushy?
    A: The taco’s existence is too brief for such sorrows to take hold.
    We also order the mixta ($6.50), a tostada piled with a fish ceviche, more slices of avocado, whole shrimp, and chunks of octopus that may have first been given a good roast, and the tower of seafood is then buried beneath a ladle of salsa. The shrimp is cooked, limey, oceanic; the octopus chunks are dense without being rubbery, and the sea they evoke is deeper, older (possibly just roastier); the ceviche is light, better with a squirt of lime, and, if you’re daring, a dash of the habanero hot sauce sitting in the enormous jar on the table. If you like your pulpo and camarón, the mixta is the clear choice; if you want lazier seas, stick to the ceviche. 

Get the taco. One taco, two taco, three taco, four. The textural juxtaposition is as intense as the flavor, the hard boney crunch of the shell giving way to the soft savory/acidic/spice of the filling. Eating one-plus of these is overwhelmingly fulfilling in an animalistic way, a way in which all other tacos we’ve yet eaten very much failed to be. And as your reptile-self awakens, as you crunch through your taco, pausing at times to break off hunks of tortilla and pile them with ceviche, you’ll realize that here, in Pomona, you’re eating the ocean – and that Mariscos Jalisco is the best poke place around.
 

*poke in Hawaii: different story. 

**and Mariscos Jalisco has also long been known as one of LA’s most beloved food trucks, winning multiple area taco competitions, landing on dozens of national best taco lists, not to mention Jonathan Gold’s famed 101 best list just last year, and it has been featured on the Netflix show Ugly Delicious, was ordered in by Chrissy Teigen for Oscars night this year, and, plus, we ate there already in April and have been dying to go back.

Go Back <— Tearing into the Local Stew