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Cheese Wafers
Butter thin crackers, and sprinkle thickly with grated cheese. Put in the oven, and bake until the cheese is melted and the crackers are a delicate brown. Serve with salad or soup.
A three-line recipe that assumes you know what a hot oven does to cheese on a biscuit. The whole thing hinges on watching it.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A moderately hot oven, in the region of 375F, suits the job: hotter and the crackers scorch at the edges before the cheese has flowed; cooler and the cheese dries out rather than melting.
- TimingLikely only a few minutes, and the margin between pale and burnt is very short. Stay at the oven and pull them when the cheese is glossy and just beginning to color, as the recipe's own test implies.
- "Thin crackers"Most likely a plain unsweetened water cracker or soda biscuit rather than a modern buttery snack cracker. Water crackers or plain saltines both work; anything already high in fat will slump.
- The cheeseGrated cheese in an American kitchen of this kind would most often have meant firm factory Cheddar, or dry Parmesan for sprinkling. A good melting cheese such as Gruyere or a medium Cheddar behaves best; very dry or very aged cheese is more apt to separate and release oil.
- ButterButter the crackers thinly. The cheese contributes plenty of fat once it melts, and a heavy layer of butter underneath makes the cracker soggy instead of crisp.
- SeasoningA grind of pepper, a dusting of paprika or a trace of cayenne over the cheese is in keeping with the period and stops the wafers tasting flat next to soup.
- Yield and servingNo quantity is given; judge it by the number of guests, alongside salad or soup as the recipe directs. They are best eaten hot from the oven; once cooled the cheese sets hard and the cracker softens.
Cheese wafers belong to the old savoury tradition of small hot cheese things served with soup or at the close of a meal, alongside cheese straws, ramekins and Welsh rarebit. The trick of using a ready-made cracker rather than pastry marks it as a convenience recipe: commercial soda and water crackers were cheap, uniform and widely sold in barrels and tins by the late nineteenth century, which made a hot cheese nibble a matter of minutes rather than an afternoon with a rolling pin. Its place in a meatless cookbook is straightforward. Books of this kind were compiled for Lenten and vegetarian tables, and they leaned on cheese, eggs and nuts to supply what the absent meat had. A dish that turns two pantry staples into something hot and savory to accompany a soup course earned its page.