Merkts Sharp Cheddar Cheese Spread [General]

2013 Oct 28
Is this stuff available anywhere in Ottawa or even Canada? Or do I have to venture down south....=(

2013 Nov 1
Try MacLaren's sharp cheese spread - you can find it in most local grocery stores.

2013 Nov 1
Costco used to sell the MacLaren's in multipacks - total guilty pleasure!!!

2013 Nov 1
Yes, I used to buy it at Costco all the time. Often, the thing with Costco is that what they have today they may no longer have tomorrow. MacLaten's is a case in point.

2013 Nov 1
eeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwhh.

Had that MacLaren's Imperial, once .... and only once. Brought it to a picnic on Ingonish Beach, Cape Breton Island, summer 2006.

Must be an acquired taste (like mar-mite etc.)

If a remember correctly (and I really don't want too), it was like badly aged cheese-whiz. Yikes !

Bet there were some happy raccoon's that dug the discarded cheese product out of the trash bin .... back at Ingonish.

2013 Nov 2
Sorry CC, but I'm with monty on this one. We get a container of that 'stuff' every winter holiday season. We turned a couple of friends onto it and it has garnered the name Christmas Cheese in our house.

Is it actual cheese? Well, no. I don't consider it that. It is a spread. Sort of. A crumbly spread. You can't quite slice it and you can't really spread it very easily. You have to sort of break off little chunks of it and mash it down onto the braunschweiger or whatever else you are pairing it with on a cracker but without breaking the cracker (which is unpossible).

2013 Nov 2
I think it is actual cheese. And I'm not sure what is so yucky about it - it tastes like a good sharp cheese should taste. It tastes like a nice sharp cheddar. I love the stuff I just can't afford it very often :-)

2013 Nov 2
We get it Christmas too. We use it to make "Cheese Shortbread" Don't have the recipe here (in NS)....2 cups flour, 1 tub MacLarens (room temp) butter About a cup. Cut ingredients with seasoning - choose whatever: mustard, hot sauce, curry, sesame oil. Form into a log. Chill, slice & bake. Sorry not to have that butter quantity precisely....but these cookies are GREAT with drinks. The unbaked log keeps in the fridge or freezer and you can slice and bake whenever needed. Which is often!

2013 Nov 3
iamifun I don't know anywhere to get Merkts but we do have MacLaren's and I see in this weeks flyers that there are 2 new entries in the same class as those 2: Black Diamond Spreadable Sharp (and also Regular) as well as Balderson Spreadable Aged Cheddar. Both are in fact Parmalat products made in Winchester I believe, just a few minutes south of Ottawa. Perhaps too local for ya but works for me. =;0)
Kraft makes MacLaren's, perhaps at their cheese plant at Ingleside just south of Winchester, not sure.

2013 Nov 4
As a kid in Sarnia (late 80's early 90's), there was a local restaurant in the mall called Robbie B's, they had a garlic bread appetizer served with "Potted Cheese" which was just garlic toast with a side of spreadable cheddar it is one of my fondest memories of Sarnia.

And then a couple of years ago I found out the chef at Robbie B's was just putting Merkts in a little ramekin and serving it beside garlic toast.

Was still delicious, but for years I thought potted cheese was some kind of secret Sarnia food that no one had ever heard of.

Gonna go get some Mclarens and a baguette..

2013 Nov 7
Oh, man. There's one of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures—although I guess I'm not actually guilty about it.

Toasted white bread sandwich with MacLaren's, butter, sliced tomatoes, and an eff-ton of black pepper.