Soda Crackers, Those Ubiquitous Squares

Last night we had Trappey’s Navy Beans for supper. I don’t know if I could make a better tasting white bean soup, for sure not so fast. Two cans and some butter in a dish and microwave, serve with soda crackers. My husband likes to crush soda crackers in his soup. I like to butter some and eat them on the side.

Growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s soda crackers always seemed to be in the cupboard. Both my Dad and my husband’s Dad ate them crushed up in milk. Our Mom’s put them on top of scalloped corn and always crushed them up in meatloaf. I remember my Grandma loved to eat them with butter. I remember sitting with her in a Chinese Restaurant, where she buttered some of those crackers as an hors d oeuvre telling me how much she loved the taste. They were always around and must have been in my parent’s, and possibly my grandparent’s, cupboards when they were growing up. They must have been cheap. It seems they were one of the few store bought items in poorer homes. I just read The Glass Castle, a biography of a gal who grew up really poor. She mentioned having only soda crackers in the cupboard.

I put them in meatloaf, and crush them on top of scalloped dishes like my mom. I love them with butter like my Grandma and have been known to eat them topped with peanut butter and, once in a while, tuna fish. That, though, seems to be the extent of soda crackers for me. My husband won’t eat soup without them, though, so, as in the cupboards of my parent’s and grandparent’s, they are always there.

Hm, kind of a food heritage. I’ll have to think of other things that have been passed from generation to generation. That reminds me of the story of the newly married guy who asked his wife why she cut the ends off the ham when she baked one. “Because that’s the way my mother did it,” she replied. When inquiring of his mother-in-law as to why she cooked ham that way she replied, “That’s the way my mother baked hams.” When he finally had the opportunity to query his new grandmother-in-law about cutting the ends off hams she replied, “I didn’t have a pan large enough to hold a whole ham.”