Graham cracker

"Graham crackers" redirects here. For the 1997 Graham Chapman book, see Graham Crackers.
Graham cracker

Modern graham crackers
Alternative names Graham wafer
Type Cookie
Main ingredients Graham flour
Cookbook: Graham cracker  Media: Graham cracker

The graham cracker (/ˈɡræm/; also graham wafer) is a type of cookie confectionery.

The Graham Cracker was inspired by the preaching of Sylvester Graham, who was a part of and strongly influenced by the 19th century temperance movement; Graham believed that a vegetarian diet anchored by home-made whole grain bread, made from wheat coarsely ground at home, as part of a lifestyle that involved minimizing pleasure and stimulation of all kinds, was how God intended people to live and that following this natural law would keep people healthy; his preaching was taken up widely in the US in the midst of the 1829–51 cholera pandemic.[1]:15–27[2]:29–35 [3][4] His followers, Grahamites, formed one of the first vegetarian movements in the US, and graham flour, graham crackers, and graham bread were created for them and marketed to them; Graham did not invent these products nor profit from them.[1]:29

A near equivalent in the United Kingdom is the digestive biscuit.[5]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Iacobbo, Karen; Iacobbo, Michael (2004). Vegetarian America : a history. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. ISBN 978-0275975197.
  2. ↑ Smith, Andrew F. (2009). Eating history : 30 turning points in the making of American cuisine. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231140928.
  3. ↑ Tompkins, K. W. (2009). "Sylvester Graham's Imperial Dietetics". Gastronomica. 9: 50–60. doi:10.1525/gfc.2009.9.1.50. JSTOR 10.1525/gfc.2009.9.1.50.
  4. ↑ Money, J. (1982). "Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform". The Journal of Sex Research. 18 (2): 181–182. doi:10.2307/3812085.
  5. ↑ Panati, Charles (1989). Panati's extraordinary origins of everyday things. San Francisco: Perennial Library. p. 413. ISBN 0-06-096419-7. Retrieved 2011-04-08. The graham cracker originated as a health food, and in Britain it is still known as a "digestive biscuit."
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