I have a dream. A cheesy, cheesy dream related to either some Tlazolteotl Bruja in my bloodline, or a portent ingrained into the DNA of all those who eat nachos: Non-Euclidian spires of chips rising from seas of melted cheese, hooded chefs speaking The Cheese Speech, and before all, an order of nachos made entirely of cheese. Instead of chips, hard pieces of cheese. Instead of toppings, chunky bits of cheese. Instead of melting cheese on top, you’d melt seven different cheeses on top. I wanted to make this dish a reality, but could never figure out how to make chips of cheese, until last night the hooded chefs whispered two words, “Doritos Loaded”.
Doritos Loaded, or maybe Doritos LOADED, are what happen when a mozzarella stick has a three way between it, some Doritos, and some bad nacho cheese, and then you get rid of the mozzarella and change the stick shape into that of a triangle. If you took a glob of raw nacho cheese ore, rolled it around in some smashed Dorito bits to solidify it, deep fry it, and finally had a nachosmith forge it into a chip shape, that is the secret recipe for the Doritos Loaded. You may think that this is the fever dream of a syphilitic meth-head carnie (so just a carnie) at some local fair, but no, it was actually a joint effort between the undoubtedly stoned food scientists at Doritos and the stoner favorite convenience store go-to 7-11. When it was found that the hours of 7 am to 11 pm were not enough hours to sell them however, a foul deal was struck with the corpulent kingdom of The Burger King. And lo did they spread into select Burger King restaurants across the United States, available between The Whopper and The Extra Long Cheeseburger for anyone with a few bucks who drives or stumbles into an outpost of the King. But can they be used for an all cheese order of nachos?
Sure, I guess, maybe, I don’t know? The main problem is their lack of structural rigidity. A little melted cheese on top is no problem, but throw on some heavier toppings and you’re probably asking for trouble of the broken chip kind. You’re also only getting 4 “chips” per triangular box, a triangular box that will run you $2.49 plus tax, resulting in that to get the chips needed for a full order of nachos it’s going to run you quite the pretty penny. Really, if you’re going to be spending pretty pennies on nachos, go buy some real nachos, don’t waste them on some goofy Elagabalian experimental cheese dinner meal.
Oh yeah, they has a flavor too. And how would one describe it? Meeahh. It’s the sound you make when you eat something that isn’t great, but covers all the bases enough that you can’t really say that it’s bad in a slightly better than middle of the road way. They’re alright. I didn’t want to spit them out, but at the same time I wouldn’t say that I would need to get them again. Would I have rather just eaten a bunch of regular Doritos? Definitely. Would I have rather eaten a mozzarella stick? No, but I’m not a big mozzarella stick fan. So there you go, they’re somewhere between Doritos and mozzarella sticks if that clears things up for you.
Finally, the biggest and most philosophical question of them all, does a Dorito Loaded “chip” count enough as a cheese chip for the purposes of an all cheese nacho? By name alone one would have to say no, as an all cheese order of nachos couldn’t have anything but cheese in it, however I would say that it is the very things in cheese that are not cheese that makes the different varieties of cheese that you need to create an all cheese nachos as opposed to a nachos carved out of cheese. Now, not knowing how to make different kinds of cheese, or a cheese in general, I couldn’t tell you exactly the difference between two different kinds of cheese, but I imagine it’s adding certain ingredients to give them different flavors. Based on this I wouldn’t say that a pepperjack cheese is not a cheese because it has pepper bits in it, and along the same lines I wouldn’t say that a Doritos Loaded isn’t cheese chip because it has a lot of Dorito bits in it. Until a hooded figure appears at my door uttering the Cheese Speech and tells me otherwise, I’ll stick with that. Probably won’t make an all cheese nacho though with them, I ain’t got that kind of scratch.
