Sunday, February 10, 2008

Carr's Cheese Melts - the crack cocaine of savoury biscuitry


One packet is open, the other is sealed. I am securely supplied for at least the next week, assuming I behave in a moderate and controlled fashion. With Carr's Cheese melts, this is not easy. They are the most ferociously addictive savoury biscuits I have ever encountered.

In fact, they are beyond savoury. They are beyond cheesiness. They are, allegedly, sprinkled with 'dried cheese'. I do not believe this. I think they have been impregnated with a chemically enhanced essence of extra mature Cheddar and possibly some kind of opiate. There's an acrid, bitter tang to them that crinkles the nasal passages and fuses perfectly with the stunning texture (thin, crunchy, but with an almost TUC wafer-like shortbreadiness). They are an acquired taste - the Marmite of biscuits - and once consumed, there is no way back, save through extensive therapy. Probably involving the horrors of Ryvita.

Eating Cheese Melts naked (the biscuit, not you; or me) does not adequately communicate their dangerous brilliance. It is as an adjunct to particular varieties of cheese that their cunning qualities take hold. In particular, Cambozola and very strong Cheddar. Anything with a nasty bacterial whiff, such as Stilton, Brie de Pays, Camembert or Danish Blue, counteracts the powerful attack of the Melt itself. Though Roquefort, oddly, works very well. Butter is simply...inadequate. This biscuit begs for the corpse of milk.

Cheese Melts disappeared from the Shetland Islands three weeks ago, provoking frenzied shelf-scouring my myself. They have now returned. I note that Somerfields have a note attached to the shelf upon which they sit, claiming that they represent 'Scottish tastes'. I fear this is true. High-fat, High-salt, encouraging the addition of even higher fat, higher salt substances. Nurse, the statins!

5 comments:

Canute said...

I read this post yesterday, before being taken shopping to Tescos by senior management (she values my opinion and my ability to push the trolley.)
I saw these very biscuits on the shelf , with a "come hither" look about them. I succumbed to temptation and put them into the trolley. 91p!
You can guess the result..........



Hello, my name is Canute, and I too have been over indulging in Carr's Cheese Melts. My particular shameful addiction is with slices of Emmental.

Rachel Fox said...

I think I could probably eat a whole packet in one go..without pause..as one melts the other goes in...
It's evil.
Rachel

jugrote said...

I have some in my cupboard and I pulled them out now. I bought them one day when planning to grab a pack of Table Water crackers and cheese, thinking maybe I could kill two birds with one stone. Not true. They're tasty, but not the easiest on the stomach after 3 or so crackers. And I think they taste exactly like Chicken in a Biskit crackers. I haven't had CiaB since my childhood, but the first bite, that's what I thought of. I should compare the ingredients of the two -- I think I'm on to something here ...

Victor2008 said...

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Crack Cocaine

Anonymous said...

ridiculously more-ish, to use an ancient middle class idiom. But that's what they are, in snack terms!! Fabulous