"crackers" news and stories

I guess I missed this over the summer, though I can't imagine how something so strange could have slipped through my Google Reader! Apparently, a dairy farm in France offers cheese made from human breast milk.

I'm not entirely sure that I believe this, but a web site for the farm, Le Petit Singly, does exist in French. There's a post about it on Why Travel to France from last June, as well as a mentioning of that post here on Serious Eats -- but neither confirms the existence. According to a Wikipedia post, breast milk was sometimes consumed in the ancient world in fertility cults, and it's thinner and sweeter than milk from other mammals.

So if it does exist, there are certainly some questions to address. Firstly, would you taste it? And how would you eat it -- plain? On crackers? Would it mean an entire line of human breast milk products are on the horizon?

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Well here's something that doesn't happen every day. A British woman, Kim Stead, bit into a cracker (called biscuits in England), and a diamond fell out. Of course she was really excited about it at first, but quickly came to the conclusion that it probably wasn't worth that much.

The diamond was pretty small and had probably fallen out of a jewelry setting. She did notify the cracker company, McVitie, who at first suggested that it might be crystallized sugar. Once Mrs. Stead assured them it was a diamond, McVitie sent a package for her to return to them so they could start an investigation.

No word on if Mrs. Stead has returned the diamond yet or any results. What would you do if you found something like that in your food?

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I've become sort of the appetizer guy in my family when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas. While my sister cooks the main meal, others in the family always offer to bring something over: desserts and other pies, soda, wine, etc. I've been doing appetizers and snacks the past few years, and here are a few tips.

I think appetizers and snacks should be low stress and easy to make/set up. One of the best is a cheese and cracker platter. All you have to do is go to your supermarket and go to the cheese section (you know, the stuff beyond Kraft) and choose several good looking, nice cheeses. I usually go with a cheese nut roll (I've been buying a Port Wine cheese roll that everyone seems to like), a good aged cheddar, and maybe some Boursin. For crackers, it's amazing what is available, and I usually grab several different varieties: pepper crackers, rosemary crackers, and also plain ol' Ritz, which you can't go wrong with. Get a nice platter or tray, put the various cheeses in the middle, each with their own knife, and then spread the crackers all around the edge. Looks great.

I've heard of people eating ants, crickets, and even larvae, but wasps? Not until today.

In Omachi, Japan, a village 120 miles northwest of Tokyo, 80-year-old hunters catch digger wasps in nearby forests. The wasps are boiled, dried, then sprinkled over a cracker dough, which is cut with hot iron stamps to create the cracker shapes. The crackers are called jibachi senbei and are sold in packages of 20 for a mere £1.60.

Wonder if you can feel a sting.

Keebler has been on quite a roll with their TownHouse line of crackers (the Bistro crackers are quite good). They're releasing several different flavors of their Toppers crackers, the latest being Garlic & Herb.

How are they? They're OK. The problem I have is that the garlic and herb flavors aren't quite strong enough. They have a really strong flavor of their regular buttery Toppers and then the mild garlic and herb flavor kicks in. I wish the flavor was stronger, like the garlic and herb crackers that you can get in the Ritz line and the Triscuit line and various veggie-flavored crackers.

Toppers are so named because they are a bit thicker than typical crackers and have a little curved "bowl" so you can put toppings on them without stuff fall off. According to the back of the box, you can "top 'em," "dip 'em," "serve 'em," or have them "stand alone." That last one sounds kinda odd. What, you don't eat them at all, you just let them sit there untopped and alone? Weird.