Surely you think of spreading peanut butter on them or making some yummy s’mores when you hear people say graham crackers, but did you know the stories behind them?
Several characteristics distinguishing graham crackers are examined by quality control chemists and technicians including appearance, color and odor during production.
Origins
The graham cracker, widely and unofficially considered an American icon, is an American iconic snack that the world knows little about. Invented by Reverend Sylvester Graham, a Victorian reformer who called for vegetarianism, a loss of sexual appetite and who was against masturbation, its creation was contrary to American culture as a whole. He expresses that physical pleasure in human minds leads one to commit lustful thoughts which in turn leads them to doing things contrary to the workings of good behavior in society.
The ingredient in Graham’s recipe for graham crackers was wheat flour with water, mixed to a soft state and rolled out, cut in shapes, and baked in moderate ovens. Before baking in moderate temperatures Graham would prick vigorously his dough with a fork to avoid the puffing up – a practice very common even to this day. His creation was not sweetened with sugar at the time that first commercial graham crackers hit the market, but sweetened graham crackers were created soon after, something Graham had decided wholeheartedly against.
Graham crackers are now made with white flour, shortening (or oil) and flavor enhancers, like salt or vanilla, to make sure they taste the best. The graham crackers undergo extensive food laboratory testing and inspection including sensory panels trained to pick up the slightest variations and quality control chemists looking at numerous physical attributes compared to those developed during the development stage. Guarantee of product consistency resulting in a better taste experience.
Inventor
A Presbyterian minister from New Jersey, Sylvester Graham preached about whole grains and temperance. During his time he was extremely respected in the temperance movement, so he advocated unrefined flour and, as a part of a balanced diet, intentionally unstimulating foods like fruits or nuts. In this position, indulging in spices or sugar can create sensual stimulation that leads directly to sexual depravity, according to Graham.
The original graham crackers were manufactured with coarsely ground whole wheat flour and had no sugar, or molasses as a flavor alternative to refined white sugar. Later, sugar became more easily procured and into the recipe this ingredient was incorporated; this also helps them stay good longer and be more durable.
Sugar makes the cracker taste better, but it also helps the texture and color of the cracker. Traditional recipes instruct us that sugar makes up 5-15 percent of your final recipe’s sweetener volume, with the rest coming from ingredients like corn syrup, molasses, or honey included for other reasons like flavor or diminished calorie consumption per bite sized cracker.
Their quality assurance checks done by team of food chemists and technicians to evaluate appearance, color, texture and odor characteristics to ensure high quality graham crackers all the time before they arrive at store shelves.
Popularity
Camping meals with chocolate, marshmallows and s’mores have always been an American treat that involves Graham crackers. However, the inventor, Sylvester Graham (19th century Presbyterian minister), intended them more as a puritanical food; if one ate according to the diet, one would think purely and act purely, combatting the sexual urge and going, ultimately, to moral redemption.
However, graham was selling the heck out of his healthy graham crackers, which were actually incredibly delicious for their time. They were made by Graham with non bleached wheat flour mixed with either molasses or another type of sugar as the main ingredients… in the case of molasses they were loved by Graham’s followers, the Grahamites.
While graham crackers became sweetened treats in their own right, the crackers themselves have also been an ingredient used in such dishes as pie crusts as our diets changed.
The National Biscuit Company—now Nabisco—was born in 1898, and helped mass produce Graham crackers. ‘So at this point, his nameake has become more well known for salty snacks rather than s toers and we can imagine that Graham wouldn’t approve of that usage today!’
There are the usual suspects in Graham crackers: primary ingredients, but there are also materials beyond primary ingredients that make them taste and feel a certain way. For crunchiness, leavening agents like sodium bicarbonate or sodium acid pyrophosphate help you to reach your goal, but whey can aid in reducing bitterness, which brings moisture. This is where fats and oils help make the batter more homogenous, and prevent gluten formation as we add water to the flour.
Nabisco
Graham crackers have been a standard American snack for generations, and they’re part of memories of simpler times. Their popularity has spread worldwide now, but regions are contributing in their own way to how the recipe is currently fashioned. Cheesecake cake is an essential part of multiple meals and snack found in most grocery stores nationwide and can be enjoyed dipped in chocolate or crusted to a Graham cracker.
Sylvester Graham was an eccentric with great interest in healthy eating and dietary reform. On the best way to kill carnal desires, he said whole sexual abstinence was the best way, and he also advocated eating whole grains, coarsely ground wheat (which became graham crackers one day) and plain foods with bland flavors, such as bland bread. When this idea spread, it was mightily embraced during Victorian England as widespread social reform.
You can make today’s graham crackers today using many different ingredients. Some manufacturers use organic ingredients, others turn them toward low fat recipes or setting themselves apart from competition by means of unique shapes.
The Nabisco brand graham crackers comes with a wide popularity on the market, both traditionally and honey varieties. Honey, though lighter in flavor than regular honey, lacks molasses in it, and will, for that reason, disappoint honey fans expecting the straight traditional graham taste.
