"graham crackers" news and stories

While store-bought graham crackers are pretty great in their own right, the homemade rendition inhabits its own rarefied realm of culinary excellence. And looking at these specimens made by Deb at Smitten Kitchen, it's easy to see why. You can practically smell the warm aroma of honey and cinnamon, and feel the delicate crackle of the sugar topping between your teeth. While most grahams call out for a slab of chocolate and a marshmallow, these demand nothing but a simple appetite to match their simple -- but bountiful -- charms.

[Via Smitten Kitchen]

So this has peanut butter, eclairs, and cake in the title. Must be a diet food.

Actually, it's the Peanut Butter Eclair Cake, from Shirley McNevich over at Mom's Best Recipes. Besides peanut butter, it's made with Jello Instant Pudding, Cool Whip, and Honey-Maid Graham Crackers. I can picture my mom making this in the 60s or 70s, getting the recipe from a magazine.

That wasn't a typo in the title. Anaphrodisiac is the opposite of aphrodisiac. It's something that quells the raging libido.

Both graham crackers and corn flakes were developed as a way to keep people from having sex.

Sylvester Graham, the inventor of graham flour and the purported inventor of graham crackers, believed that if food sat in the stomach for too long, it overstimulated the organs and caused sexual arousal. He also felt that rich, fatty foods would only increase sexual urges. According to Graham, more healthy graham crackers meant less sex.

John Harvey Kellogg, one of the Kellogg brothers who invented corn flakes, subscribed to Graham's principles. Cornflakes originally had no sugar and were served to the patients in his psych ward. Kellogg believed that bland cornflakes equaled a bland bedroom.

Read more about the history of graham crackers and cornflakes on Wikipedia.

What foods do you think of as anaphrodisiacs? I'll start the list with beans - for obvious reasons.

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Today is one of those days where we get two different holidays. It's National Banana Split Day and also National S'mores Day.

I've only had s'mores once in my life, I think (I guess that happens if you're not a boy scout). As for banana splits, I haven't had one of those in years, though I still remember the theme song to the TV show ("La La La, La La La La, La La La, La La La La"). Here's a recipe from Epicurious if you want to make the grahams and marshmallow from scratch. If you want to just use store bought food, take a look at the Honey Maid recipe. And if you want a variation, here are a million more recipes for s'mores.

For a banana split, try this. The Banana Split Cake sounds great too.

These two holidays actually go together, so here's your assignment: make a banana split, and put some s'mores in it. Then go for a walk or do a sit up or something.

The start of the Halloween season is earlier every year - the retail start of the season, that is. This year, even though the "back to school" sales seemed to start before graduations did and the first signs of pumpkins and ghosts were not far behind, I tried to put it out of my mind as long as I could. This weekend I gave in and bought some candy corn, but it's possible that I would have made the Bat S'mores Kit from Williams-Sonoma my first seasonal purchase if not for the fact that it is only available online. The kit is completely unnecessary for those who just want to make a s'more, but it would make a great holiday gift for those who really like to start celebrating in advance. It includes Scharffenberger 41% milk chocolate, bat-shaped graham crackers and homemade marshmallows (enough for eight large s'mores) packed neatly with an orange and black ribbon.

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