How to eat Ryvita

Ryvita has been around longer than you might think. Back in 1937, in "The Road to Wigan Pier", George Orwell wrote:

"A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't....When you are unemployed....underfed, harassed, bored and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want to eat something a little bit "tasty". '

Now, while I agree with the sentiments expressed here by Orwell, I don't agree with his choice of Ryvita as a dull wholesome food. Wholesome, yes. Dull - never!

I just ADORE Ryvita. This is how I like to eat it, and as you will see, by the time I've finished with it, it is wholesome no more.

Step One: Take a couple of Ryvita, dimpled side up. Spread lavishly with cool salted butter, until the dimples are full. (It's an art getting the butter to exactly the right temperature. Too hard, and the Ryvita will shatter into a million dusty shards. Too soft, and it's greasy: project destroyed. Don't even THINK about using margarine either. It's GOT to be butter.) Slice some good strong cheddar (must not be the crumbly kind) and cover the Ryvita with wafer-thin slices. Sit back and enjoy your healthy snack.

Step Two: Gosh, that was delicious and you're still hungry! Repeat step one, with the rest of the Ryvita (Ryvitae?), butter and cheese.

Step Three: Feel sick and no longer healthy. Clear up the crumbs and wrappers and act like it never happened.

Alternative toppings (which must always include the butter), are peanut butter, PB and jam, PB and marmite (my fave) and, to ring the changes, just marmite. Oh, it's so good I might just have to have some now.

The above activity has been known in our house, for a number of years now, as a "Ryvita Frenzy". As in "don't bother asking Mummy for any of that, she's having a Ryvita Frenzy". Back in the 1980s when I dabbled for a while with bulimia*, I was "doing" at least one packet of Ryvita with butter and marmite every day. (I flirted with anorexia*, too, but just liked my food too much.....). It works with any flavour of Ryvita, but avoid the new-fangled stuff with raisins in. I don't know why they would do that.

I found out recently that the Ryvita thing might just run in families. Last summer my teenaged niece was staying with us, and she surprised me late at night getting a sneaky Ryvita fix when I though everyone was in bed and asleep. She was highly amused. Apparently my sister suffers from the same addiction!

(* I'm not being flippant about these diseases. I know they are real, serious, and not to be recommended as leisure activities. Just telling it like it was.......)