“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.
— Sean Bernard (@fakeseanbernard) June 13, 2019
& 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!
- 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.
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