MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Ritz Crackers Have Ridged Edges

When you talk about crackers, one particular name comes to mind: Ritz. The delicious Ritz crackers, with their 7 holes & golden-brown exterior, are instantly recognizable & enjoyed around the world. But one design feature has puzzled diners for years: why do Ritz crackers have those scalloped, ridged edges? Well, according to a TikTok video, originally posted by the official Ritz Crackers account, it’s because Ritz crackers double as cheese cutting tools.

Food hacks & secrets are popular on TikTok, but they aren’t always accurate. This video, however, is different from most in that it comes from the official Ritz TikTok account. So, in this video, a Ritz employee uses the scalloped-edged cracker as an improvised knife. After rolling the ridges across a thin slice of Swiss cheese, they were able to easily pull the slice apart. The cheese square that was sliced was the perfect size for serving on a Ritz cracker, and, after snack time, there were no dirty utensils to clean.

Now, not everyone is convinced of the cracker’s hidden purpose. Some folks have pointed out that the cheese in the video was pretty thin to begin with, and that the person still had to pull the slice apart after pushing into it fairly hard. So, for most snacking situations, you would still need a knife to cut the cheese.

Do the scalloped edges on Ritz make it a better cheese-cutting tool than other crackers? Possibly. It’s also possible the design was chosen to give the snack a sense of class, since, during the Great Depression, Americans were looking for fancy items to enjoy on a small budget. Heck, even the Ritz’s upper-crust name was chosen for that very reason.

So be classy & clean by using your Ritz crackers to cut your cheese from now on. It’s the way they were intended!

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

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