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Graham Crackers
Posted to %afda by pieceoftheuniverse on 30th October 2000
Laura Shadbolt wrote [stuff, including]:
> What are these graham crackers I keep hearing about? My boyf is called
> Graham and he's probably as thin as a cracker. Or something.
Okay. I've been watching this for some time, but apparently no one is going to get it right, so you'll have to excuse me whilst I get in here and try to clarify to the point of oblivion:
What we merkins call "crackers" is more or less the same as the British "crackers": that is, a small square, usually white, with little holes interspersed for no readily apparent reason. They're sold either plain or salted, and the salted ones have little crystalline structures on them that could be either miniature cities or sodium-like thingies, but will come off and land on your hand in either case, making you a destroyer of worlds or just a messy eater. These are usually very bland, and very rarely eaten alone. They go great with crackers, cheese, elephants, whatever your heart may desire.
A graham cracker is an entirely different animal. These are rectangular crackers, approximately the size of eight regular crackers laid out two-by-four, and slightly thicker. Depending on the age (that is, how long they've been sitting in your cupboard), they are either crunchy or semi-soft. Both will leave crumbs everywhere just out of spite.
Graham crackers are chosen for making smores because of their size and taste -- after all, no one wants to go through all the trouble of melting chocolate and marshmallows together and then have to fit the entire hot gooey mess into a square no larger than the smaller part of the palm of your hand.
A picture of one of the boxes these wonders of American creations is here: http://www.netgrocer.com/detail.cfm?oid=2069&smallFrm=yes
Sorry about the netgrocer link, but it's harder than an escape from the Bug-Bladder Beast of Traal to get a picture of these things.
> > > BTW I'll bring the Pringles. Does anyone have any flavour requests?
> >
> > Sour Cream n' Onion! (I'll bring the toothpaste! =)
>
> Yuk, I don't like that flavour. Mind you, I only like Plain/Original
> (whatever they call it) and Salt and Vinegar. Has anyone tried the Pizza
> flavour ones? Are they any good?
The Pizza flavour Pringles are an insult to their name, sadly. It's the same old story: no one can agree what to put on a pizza. The people who put this chip together apparently like the following toppings:
Garlic
Onions
Extra Tomato Sauce
Small amount of cheese
Red Dye #5
There might be Pepperoni in there somewhere, but it wasn't listed in the ingredients.
--
pieceoftheuniverse - who made himself finish the package because he can't bear to waste what would otherwise be perfectly good food.
Posted to %afda by Caleb on 2nd November 2000
/ me looks sneakily from side to side
/ me chuckles...
Graham Crackers. Ah, yes. They currently are the label applied to certain substances that don't really resemble crackers at all, except for the fact that they are flat and don't have oodles of sugar in them. Nor do they resemble any graham that I've ever known. However, the history of the label is quite impressive. If you were around about 80 years ago (or so), you might possibly, if you were in the right circles and knew the right passwords and special knocks, have heard of Grady Rehabituators And Human Addiction Managers. This interesting group was founded, of course, by a man named Grady. Their purpose was originally to get people addicted to things. Quite simply, that sums it up. The big thing to be addicted to at the time, of course, was getting to be heroin. Of course, they didn't realize this, and actually tried to get people addicted to chocolate. Yes, that's right - chocolate. Even though there is a reasonable amount of this substance available, Grady figured out that if you combine it's naturally addicting characteristics with the huge number of women (with the potential to attempt a diet, no less), you could make a pretty good business.
Now, this committee, or group, of people that was formed was going around, trying to get others addicted to chocolate. (One or two tragically sampled their own goods, but that's another story.) They met with a decided lack of success. As a last gasp, before they had to give up the business altogether, they decided to try to invent a substance that would become synonomous with chocolate use, and also add to the addictive qualities of the chocolate. In order to not stand out too much, it couldn't have much of a flavor on it's own, it couldn't be sweet (would attract people to eat it on its own), and it had to be fairly soft so as to not completely override the texture of the chocolate. After many, many attempts, they came up with a flat, soft, rectangular looking thing, and one of the poor fools decided that it rather resembled a cracker. Thus, they started to be distributed as GRAHAM crackers. Unfortunately, this poor, misguided group of people couldn't accomplish things very well, either. It was found that the crackers did indeed go well with chocolate in different varieties (chocolate icing and chocolate bars [along with toasted marshmellows] were two of the most common), but instead of increasing the addictiveness of chocolate, it actually slightly reduced it. In fact, the more of the cracker that one ate with the chocolate, the less addictive the chocolate became.
So, the group was dissolved, and Grady - despondent and broke - decided to sell the recipe for the cracker to someone else. This person's name is lost in the mists of time, but they are the ones who realized the full potential of GRAHAM crackers - that is, they are an ideal item to hold on to while transporting the chocolate from wherever else it is into your mouth, without getting your hands too dirty. So, nowadays, the most common uses for these crackers are to hold either chocolate frosting in between pieces of the cracker, or to hold warmed chocolate pieces (along with marshmellow) in between pieces of the cracker. Of course, the name was derived from the fact that the recipe was labeled "Cracker", and the paper it was on still had the name of the defunt group GRAHAM for a header.
So, the next time you use a GRAHAM cracker to transport chocolate from another container into your mouth, take a moment to reflect upon the story behind the design and intent of the cracker, and send a kind thought out to the misguided fools that made up GRAHAM. Oh, and be sure that the cracker has been aged to it's proper softness, so that it doesn't interfere too much with the texture of the chocolate.
--
Caleb - looking serious.
[Two for the price of one!]
