Since I read Michael Pollan's book, every time I go to the grocery store, I view the aisles as great stacks of corn destined to give me fat rolls and diabetes. It enrages me how little of the food proffered in grocery stores is worth one goddamn.
Last week I got annoyed with the fact that I am not skilled enough yet to disconnect from the industrial food chain. Like crackers, for example. I don't know how to make them My kid likes to eat crackers, on occasion. And this is still America, why shouldn't she eat some goddamn crackers, right? I figured it was time to get off my duff and learn how to make them.
Crackers evolved from Hardtack which evolved from Ships Biscuits. Ships biscuits were terrible, nearly inedible cakes of meal designed to survive a long sea voyage. Well, that doesn't sound any grosser than some of the other tom-foolery I've managed to drum up in my kitchen. How hard could it be to make crackers? If the Keebler elves can bluff their way through it, so can I.
The anticipatory punsters must be positively tingling: "She's going crackers, so why not make some?! Har har har!"
Oh, shut up.
Here's what happened. I used a recipe from an early edition of Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook for Sesame Crackers, which I picked because it required exactly zero weird-o ingredients that I'd never use again. (The recipe is here if you're interested.) This was also my big chance to use sesame seeds - who ever actually uses these things? What is a sesame, anyway? A pressing dilemma that could keep you up at night, yes.
Anyway, I sifted the flours and dry stuff twice, which was fine, except my sifter makes a spine-curdling metal-on-metal scratching noise which made my hair stand on end after a bit.
After the sifting, I did a little baby-knead (I added some flour - it was way too sticky to handle) and then rolled out the dough to cut into boring club cracker shapes and then poked holes in them with a fork - the holes are called "docking holes" and prevent air pockets from forming.
Finally I schlepped them on greased cookie sheets and baked them. I let them cool on baking racks and was beaming mightily at my work when my daughter walked in and asked me if they were dog treats.
Nevermind her tendency for dead-on observations and the fact that they resemble Alpo Liv-A-Snaps. What's important is that I was able to use my flour sifter and rolling pin I bought at a yard sale a million years ago. Best of all, I have a new skill: making crackers that are so ugly nobody would eat them but pets.
For the record, I did sample Liv-A-Snaps in my day (I was five) and believe me, they have nothing on my Sesame Crackers. For one thing, my Sesame Crackers weren't produced by Big Ag Ghouls who shred chicken feathers and pig buttholes all under the guise of "Animal Nutrition."
Perhaps now I'll be more comfortable whipping up the staple food items in the future. Perhaps my next batch will look more cracker-like than this one. Perhaps we'll put them in the glove box in case we're stranded in the car in a blizzard.
Perhaps I'll be able to use all my dreamy thrifted enamel ware the way my great-grandmother would have wanted. (Even though probably really thought melamine was much much groovier than enamel. And probably bought her crackers in a bitchin' tin to boot.)
Perhaps it's a small finger in the Cyclopian eye of Cargill, but hey - it's my middle finger.
Recent Comments