Do you like a snack of crackers and cheese?
I certainly do! But do you know their origin?
This type of savoury crisp biscuit (that
goes ‘crack’ when you break it) goes back to the early 18th century
in colonial America, but the term had crossed the Atlantic by the early 20th
century when the ‘cream cracker’ became popular in Great Britain as something
to eat with slices of cheese.
The term ‘cracker-barrel politics’ is also
American in origin. It was the habit of food stores in rural towns to have a
barrel of crackers available from which customers could help themselves as they
stood around and chatted in those far-off relaxed days before Walmart came on
the scene!
The homespun philosophy and politics
expounded by the cracker samplers therefore acquired the name, which is still
used occasionally today – long after free crackers have ceased to be on offer!
© John Welford
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