Wiki Taught Us The Wildest Facts About Graham Crackers… And We’re Not Okay
It started with a simple question, “Graham Cracker: Cookie or Cracker” but what we learned after that will haunt us for a while.
The classification of the simple confection known as graham crackers as either a cracker or a cookie is surely a tough question. Some may argue that the snack surely leans more on the side of a cookie than a cracker, as it is more of a sweet treat. Although over 70 percent of our twitter poll stays on team “cracker.” This presented the question, “What does Graham mean? Is it a flavor? Is it an ingredient?”
According to Wikipedia, the popular biscuit treat has some not-so-desirable origins tied to a Presbyterian minister from Bound Brook, New Jersey. The snack was created with a mission: Save people’s souls from eternal damnation.
Sylvester Graham, the treat’s namesake, believed that by dulling the senses, it could prevent temptation; of all kinds. Graham believed that minimizing pleasure and stimulation of all kinds, “including the prevention of masturbation, coupled with a vegetarian diet anchored by bread made from wheat coarsely ground at home” was “how God intended people to live.” And that “following this natural law would keep people healthy” (according to Wikipedia). These bland crackers featured flavors of graham flour, oil, lard, molasses and salt. Some treat!
The snack was famously referenced by Moby Dick author Herman Melville in his 1852 novel Pierre; or The Ambiguities: “For all the long wards, corridors, and multitudinous chambers of the Apostles’ were scattered with the stems of apples, the stones of prunes, and the shells of peanuts. They went about huskily muttering the Kantian Categories through teeth and lips dry and dusty as any miller’s, with crumbs of Graham crackers.” This is regarded as the earliest reference to the Graham Cracker in popular culture.
Graham was regarded as the “Father of Vegetarianism” and his work influenced others like John Harvey Kellog; the inventor of Kellog’s Corn Flakes, and an early advocate for circumcision as “an efficacious cure for masturbation” (according to Wikipedia).
Graham never received any compensation for any sale of Graham Crackers while he was alive and violated his own anti-meat and anti-alcohol teachings as a last resort effort to save his life.
By the 1910’s, Graham Crackers became what we know and love today, when they began mass-production in the country thanks to the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco); the inventors of the Oreo.
We don’t ever expect to have a definitive answer as to whether it’s a cookie or a cracker, but we definitely have a whole new opinion on the snack.
