Ship's bread was a major industry in Delaware during the federal
period. Our grain crops were ground and baked into hard biscuits of
some sort and shipped, among other places, to the West Indies sugar
plantations. I've always thought in terms of the OTC (Original
Trenton Cracker) available in stores today as the model of such
breads. Here in Delaware we have a "beaten biscuit" that is inedible
cold but wonderful warmed. And then of course there is the "oyster
cracker" that looks like OTC, but fluffy and much smaller. Such
round biscuits would travel well in a barrel, whereas a thin biscuit
might flake.
Congratulations to Anita for preserving her eyesight to the point
where she can still read the compact OED.
In the Delaware wheat-products industry, cooperage was as important
as the milling itself. Every barrel of wheat flour or bread was also
a barrel that needed to be made and delivered to the mill. So, while
the mills are obvious on the landscape even today, historians and
archaeologists have tended to ignore the immense quantity of barrels.
So why use a cracker barrel as a piece of furniture? They were
everywhere, once the crackers were gone. We should be looking for
archaeological evidence of re-used cooperage. Not just flour and
biscuits, but fish, wine, beer, tobacco, and sometimes dead admirals,
were shipped in barrels.
At 7:23 PM -0800 4/2/04, Anita Cohen-Williams wrote:
>Carl,
>
>According to the Oxford English Dictionary (Compact Edition), the term
>"cracker" first shows up as a thin, hard biscuit in naval chronicles in
>1830. I assume that it is hardtack. The reference says "...20 barrels
>crackers..."
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