A Cheese Straw Tell-All - No. 309

Plus my insider’s guide to eating and traveling in the South. In three words…’’walk it off’’

THERE WAS NO CORONATION PARTY, crown or hoopla, but I met the Cheese Biscuit Queen when I was in Beaufort, South Carolina, recently, and she’s quite something. It’s prompted me to write a bit about cheese biscuits and their long slender cousin, cheese straws.

Cheese biscuits are visually different than straws. Both are deliciously greasy and shatter when you bite into them, and Southerners have embraced them as long as we can remember at tea time, cocktail parties, and wedding receptions. The biscuits are round and often contain Rice Krispies, while the straws are long and willowy. It’s personal preference, and you can take your pick.

And if you pop into most any gift shop in the South, you might find a local brand in a decorative tin by the register. That’s the beauty of baking homemade cheese straws—everyone loves them and they soon convince you to sell them!

My most vivid memories of cheese straws were their being served at Christmas teas when I was a young girl. In a lace-collared green velvet dress, I noshed on chicken sandwiches cut into the shape of Christmas trees. On a silver platter were cheese straws someone’s mom had extruded from one of those fancy cookie presses.

We never owned a cookie press, but that didn’t mean we were any less smitten with cheese straws. We just rolled the dough flat like pie crust and sliced it into strips with a sharp knife and baked. These days, I use a pizza cutter or a more narrow pastry roller with scalloped edges to cut the dough into even strips.