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Tidbit for January 11, 2001:
A Cracker is Born
I've known some New Englanders who I'd call real "crackers," but I never knew that crackers themselves are a New England invention. That is, until I leafed through the 2001 edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac.
According to the Almanac, both crackers and their predecessors were born in New England. In 1792, John Pearson of Newburyport, Massachusetts, made a cracker-like bread product from just flour and water that he called "pilot bread." An immediate hit with sailors because if its shelf life, it also became known as hardtack or sea biscuit.
But the real evolutionary moment in the life of the cracker came in 1801 when another Massachusetts baker, Josiah Bent, burnt a batch of biscuits in his brick oven. The crackling noise that emanated from the singed biscuits inspired the name--crackers--and a bit of Yankee ingenuity, as Bent set out to convince the world of the product's snack food potential. By 1810, his Boston-area business was booming! And, in later years, Bent sold his enterprise to the company we now know as Nabisco.
Crackers are everywhere these days, of course, but the Almanac's cracker article author, Victoria Doudera, asserts that some New Englanders still enjoy making crackers the old-fashioned way. The Almanac features tips and recipes from New Hampshire author Joan Harlow, whose book, The Harlow's Bread & Cracker Cookbook, has everything you need if you'd like to hear that crackling sound emanating from your own oven. A sample recipe for Ugly Crackers is available online at Almanac.com.
Today, the G.H. Bent Co., founded in 1891 by Josiah Bent's grandson, still sells historic cracker products including hardtack, water crackers, and common crackers. They even sell them through a very modern method--secure online ordering!
So bake up a batch of your own crispy crackers or order some of these old-fashioned New England treats--it's the only proper way to celebrate the 200th birthday of one of the region's most enduring culinary inventions.
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