Glico Tomato Cheeza

Just after graduating from college, I was desperate to get a job as my guaranteed student loans were going to require their first payment come August. With a B.A. in Psychology in hand, I was ready to take on the universe, but the universe wasn't exactly clamoring for my "expertise". As a stop-gap job, I took work at a Lutheran summer camp as a "crafts counselor". The irony of being called a "counselor" at a job which was essentially a sort of babysitting and teaching kids how to put together pre-packaged kits as a holder of a newly minted psychology degree was not lost on me.

The truth is that I was rotten at that job for several reasons. I have never been good with kids and I was impatient and sometimes angry with them. Another was that I was inexperienced and immature. I barely remember what I did, but I do know that I was oblivious enough about my poor performance that I asked the camp heads for a reference when I applied for my next job. I got that job, but they didn't exactly praise me. They said that I scared the kids. I guess I was lucky that the next job, which was directly related to my degree and far more fulfilling and appropriate for my personality, decided to take me despite the poor referral. Fortunately, I've gotten a bit better with kids (and all people in general) through time.

The reason that I am starting a review with this slice of my personal history is that there was something that happened during my time at that camp which reminded me of these crackers. One of the other counselors had to have her wisdom teeth pulled and was unable to eat solid food. On "hoagie day" (that's submarine sandwiches), she really wanted to have one, but was incapable of chewing one up. She asked the lunch ladies to puree one for her so she could drink her hoagie. After she sipped some of it, we asked her how it was. She said it tasted as you'd expect, but it was all wrong because of the loss of the textures and layers.

To me, that is a pretty good summary of this Cheeza release. This combines the tangy flavor of tomato with Camembert cheese. If I were to eat a cracker, a wedge of cheese, and a tomato, I'd think that was some good eating. In this configuration, the distillation of the cheese and fruit into powders that are pressed into the cracker seems awkward. It isn't helped by the fact that the Camembert, which is usually a mild cheese, seems incredibly intense and pungent. Camembert cheese powder is the first ingredient, and you can really taste the truth in that order.

I found this at Okashi no Machioka discount snack shop for 100 yen ($1.21). That's rather cheaper than supermarket and convenience store prices which tend to run closer to 147 yen ($1.78).  That gets you 42 grams and 214 calories of little crispy, fresh-tasting crackers. Cheeza crackers always taste cool on the tongue as the result of some alchemy I cannot fathom.

Usually, I like intense cheese flavors, but there's something about this which just doesn't work very well for me. Cheeza boasts its high cheese percentage and that is generally a good thing. I rarely find that I dislike their flavors, and I did eat the entire bag of this. However, I wouldn't buy it again.

Cheeza Bleu Cheese Crackers

It may seem that all I do is try to think up dumb or funny introductions then talk about the actual food when I make these blog posts, and, yes, that is what I do most of the time. However, through time, things are revealed about Japan and Japanese food culture which show a broader "truth" about the way things are. Believe it or not, something as mundane as these Cheeza crackers brought this though forward.

A great deal of Japanese cuisine is relatively subtle in flavor, and the Japanese find some foreign foods overbearing because their palates are generally tuned toward delicate flavors. I'll be the first to admit that my barbaric American mouth prefers to be beaten over the head with flavor. This overall tendency toward meeker flavors doesn't apply universally in Japanese food though and the area where you can most see this is in otsumami, or food designed to be consumed with beer. Such foods are often very strongly flavored. My guess is that this is either because people drink more when consuming strong flavors (which is great for bars) or they are sufficiently numbed with intoxicants that they need a bigger hit of flavor to get through the fog of their inebriation (or both).

These Cheeza crackers deliver the strong flavor in spades. They bring to mind the strong pungency and intensity of bleu cheese dressing with its moldy veiny cheese bits. They are also crispy and light little crackers. With 51% cheese, it's no surprise that they are so flavorful and with so much fat from the cheese, it's no surprise that they are crispy.

I picked up this 38-gram (1.3 oz.) bag at a local supermarket for about 150 yen or about $1.79 (on sale, they're usually more expensive). You can find Cheeza nearly anywhere in Tokyo. The entire bag is only 195 calories so you don't have to feel too guilty about polishing the whole thing off, though if you're adding some beer calories on top of that, you may find yourself developing a belly. Personally, I thought they went well with a tuna sandwich as a contrasting flavor, and it fails to produce the same beer gut effect.

Glico Cheeza Cheddar Cheese Crackers

Cheeza brand crackers have been around for ages, and I have largely resisted them based on one point - price. They cost 168 yen ($1.78) for a one serving bag. When I see Cratz's salty pretzel goodness sitting right next to Cheeza in the otsumami (snacks to be eaten while drinking alcohol) section for a mere 100-120 yen ($1.06-$1.27), I'll just snap up the yummy Cratz. As fate would have it, Cheeza went on sale for about 130 yen ($1.40) and I decided to give in and give them a try for this week of cheese-based snacks reviews.

One of the promotional points for Cheeza's crackers is the fact that they are 52% cheese. I didn't really trust that the high amount of cheese as an ingredient was going to be reflected in the crackers themselves.

That being said, they look very encouraging with their orange color. The design of the crackers is quite cute and looks like it would satisfy any discriminating mouse. Each is very thin and super crispy. The saltiness mainly comes from the cheese rather than added salt. The cheddar cheese flavor is pleasantly strong, and you can really tell a lot of cheese went into the dough both by the look and flavor. Note that the first ingredient isn't "cheddar cheese", but "cheddar cheese powder, followed by Trehalose. That sounds bad, but these taste good.

Each bag is 38 grams (1.34 oz.) and the entire contents are pictured in the picture above. It's actually a healthy amount of crackers for 199 calories. Though I'm still not happy about the price for such a small portion, I really enjoyed these and felt that they were the closest I'm going to come in Japan to the flavor of Cheez-Its. Frankly, I think these are actually better than Cheez-Its (which I love), and I'd recommend them for any fan of cheesy salted snacks.