When I lived in the USA I became quite fond of the crackers known as Wheat Thins, which seem to be more or less an American staple. That is the main brand name, but there are also store brand crackers that are very similar. Now I am back in my native UK, but when I went to look for Wheat Thins in my local supermarket, I could not find them, or anything apparently similar. There were lots of types of crackers, but not these. I have now looked in several shops but have had no luck. I am not sure what to look (or ask) for though. Does anyone know if there is a UK equivalent to this (very simple and plain) type of cracker?
I would try to describe them (for Brits unfamiliar with the American version), but I am not sure how…Um,…they are thin, and made of wheat. They are small squares, about an inch on the side, but I guess that is not an essential feature. Size doesn’t matter. They have a nutty sort of flavour (in the US you can get various flavoured versions, but I like the plain sort). They are solid in texture, not flaky, and not salt encrusted like a Tuc or a Ritz.
:eek: I’ve scoured the cracker aisle at my local big Tesco repeatedly, and never seen those. I guess I need to ask someone there.
Yeah, my need for of Wheat Thins is not so desperate that I am ready to pay £5.25 (plus shipping, no doubt) for a box. (If we were talking about Marmite, when I was in the US, that would be, and sometimes was, a different matter.) The Tesco ones certainly seem worth looking into though. Thanks.
Are they a bit crumbly? They sound a bit like differently-shaped Bretons (the most common brand of the things around here (Ontario, Canada), so far as I can tell), if so. The generic brand of them we had (until I finished them off the other day) just calls them ‘wheat crackers’ (as does the website for the Breton brand), though I have no idea if they’d be called that in the UK, too. Bretons, and the generic version thereof, are round, so you might look for something with a round cracker on the box…
I don’t know where you’re buying your Bretons, but ‘flaky’ is pretty much the last word I would use to describe their texture - Saltines are flaky, Ritz are flaky. Bretons are not flaky.
More like potato, tomato. Flaky and crumbly are completely different textures. There’s not really much point to the word ‘flaky’ if it’s going to be used to describe something that doesn’t have any flakes in it.
Bretons, which they sell in the northeast of the US too at the very least, are most equivalent to Keebler Toasteds, imho, though they’re harder and not buttery. Wheat thins are very hard for a cracker, and will snap in half with virtually no crumbs. They’re also the sweetest savory crackers I can think of.
On a totally non-helpful note, make sure when you ask for them you hhhwheathins" a la Stewie Griffin.
Sorry, but ever since reading this thread that’s all I can think about. On a more helpful note, I will ask my expat friends if they know of any resources.
Having now investigated this a bit further, I think the Tesco Wheat Thins are probably a discontinued line. I could not find them on Tesco’s own web site, and I rather think that the page at your link is an orphan. If you go to that site’s main listing of crackers, the Tesco Wheat Thins do not appear (nor does anything else with a similar name). Also, I went in to Tesco’s yesterday and had a jolly good look, but did not find them. (FWIW, I did not find Bretons either).
Maybe the British public, for some reason, did not take to Wheat Thins. Or just possibly there is something like them, but sold under a quite different name, and perhaps in a different shape.