What are Cheese Straws?
Cheese straws are a delightful cracker typically made with cheddar cheese, flour, butter, and sometimes an egg to bind the ingredients together. They can be served fresh and hot from the oven, or allowed to cool, which will give them more crispness and snap. You could really define cheese straws, which vary in length with most an average of 3-4 inches (7.62-10.16 cm), as the “grown-up” and taller version of cheese crackers like Cheese Nips®. Food historians believe that cheese straws originated in England with different recipes for cheese biscuits. The famous Mrs. Beeton published a recipe for Cayenne Cheeses in her 1861 The Book of Household Management. So popular was the book, that it was printed in the US about 10 years later. American recipes took off from there, and recipes for cheese straws or cheese biscuits began to emerge especially in Southern cookbooks. In the US, these crackers appear to have been most popular in the South, though they have since gained popularity in other
