Cheese and crackers facts for kids
Cheese and crackers is a popular snack or light meal. It's also known as cheese and biscuits in the UK. This simple dish brings together tasty crackers and different kinds of cheese.
Long ago, cheese and crackers were a common food for sailors, soldiers, and early explorers. They needed food that wouldn't spoil easily. By the 1850s, this combo became a regular item in American restaurants and bars. You can use many types of cheeses with crackers. People often enjoy it with wine. Sometimes, it's served with fruit, jams, or even dried meats like pepperoni or salami. Some well-known mass-produced cheese and cracker snacks include Handi-Snacks, Ritz, Jatz, and Lunchables.
What is Cheese and Crackers?
Cheese and crackers is a common snack or appetizer. It usually has crackers paired with different cheeses. In the United States, it's also served as a dessert. For dessert, people might add jam, jelly, or fruit preserves.
This snack is very popular at parties in the U.S. In the Southern United States, it's common to serve hot chili pepper jelly on top of cream cheese and crackers at gatherings. Cheese, being a main ingredient, gives this snack a good amount of protein.
Cheese and crackers is a great food pairing. It helps bring out the flavors of different cheeses. You can also pair it with different wines. The cheese can be sliced or cut into cubes. You can serve it separately with crackers or place it directly on top of the crackers.
A Look Back in Time
People have eaten cheese and crackers for a very long time. Sailors, immigrants, whalers, and explorers ate it before refrigerators existed. They used hardtack crackers, which are very hard, dry biscuits, along with cheese. Land explorers also ate this simple meal.
In the United States
Cheese and crackers became more popular around the 1850s. This was when bakers started making thinner, lighter crackers. During this time, restaurants began offering cheese and crackers after dessert. It was also served in saloons, which were like old-fashioned bars.
Cheese and crackers was a food for soldiers during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Some soldiers even called it a "square meal," meaning a full and satisfying meal. In 1852, Ezra Meeker ate cheese and hardtack with dried venison meat while traveling the Oregon Trail. In 1915, a mountaineer named Philip Rogers ate cheese and hardtack with raisins and nuts. This was during his trip around Mount Rainier in Washington state.
By the early 1900s, people were making cheese and crackers at home. They would bake it and add things like paprika and mustard. Back then, it was sometimes served with soups and salads. It was also a common party food. During the Great Depression in the United States, a time of economic hardship, some people ate it as a dessert. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt sometimes had it for dessert in the White House.
In the 1950s, experts on parenting and cooking suggested cheese and crackers as a snack for children. Its popularity grew a lot in the mid-1980s. This was when Oscar Mayer launched its Lunchables product. Lunchables included cheese, crackers, and lunch meat. This helped Oscar Mayer sell more lunch meats.
Mass-Produced Snacks
Many companies make cheese and cracker snacks that you can buy in stores:
- Handi-Snacks are a mass-produced cheese and crackers snack. They are made with processed cheese.
- Lunchables is another popular product. It includes cheese and crackers along with other foods.
- "Fancy cheese and crackers" was a lunch product from Oscar Mayer in the mid-1980s. It also came with lunch meat and a dessert.
