Queso de bola with Fita crackers

Not one person in our house has ever tried queso de bola. My mom herself never tried it, and it wasn’t part of my family’s tradition too. And it’s expensive: P200 pesos for the smallest ball at 350 grams ($5 dollars, equivalent to my cousin’s food and transportation to and from school for one week). So I felt compelled to get just one to introduce myself and my family to this typical “noche buena” tradition common in households across the Philippines (except ours) during this time of year.

But how do you eat this stuff? For some odd reason my body soon gravitated to the cracker aisle and pulled this box of Fita crackers. The Filipino gods of yore, Bathala and Gloria Manananggal Arroyo, have given me my answer. Spread that sh** on these sucka!

After I stopped googling, I had to shake off my buyer’s remorse after reading that one of my favorite Filipino food bloggers called it “salty and dry”, by cutting a piece and trying it myself. The verdict? This cheese ball is good. It wasn’t salty or dry at all. Maybe because I bought the “cheap domestic” kind (from the Danes brand, P170 pesos for the 350 gram ball while Magnolia’s is going for P190 pesos for the same size), and not the traditional one imported from the Never-never-lands.

It was creamy and flavorful and even my mom loves it. We’ve been eating it the past few days with these Fita crackers, along with fresh ripe papaya fruit, and even champorado. But to be honest, nothing so far trumps queso de bola with Fita crackers. Especially when you keep the cheese-to-cracker ratio at about 3-to-1.

So as we proceed with our pre-noche-buena queso de bola consumption, I must leave you with this: don’t spread the cheese on the crackers, slap a chunk on them.