To the editor:
Please add sour grapes to those crackers, from a reader who grew up in northern Maine and lived in Bangor, without ever hearing of Crown Pilot crackers till the April issue of WWF arrived. The two letters in the May issue and one in June moved me to write this one.
The Vermont Country Store notes that the secret ingredient giving the crackers their unique flavor is Malted Barley, and says that they “are unchanged after 200 years.” This seems unlikely, since besides the malted barley flour and molasses, they contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Lard would have been more likely in the early 1700s.
Through a process of germinating, sprouting and drying, the malted grains change starches into sugar. Since at least the 1970s, doctors and natural food advocates have advised that malt is a hidden sugar. “Partially hydrogenated” indicates the presence of trans fats, which have been implicated in heart disease and some types of cancer. Nabisco and other companies have been phasing them out in many products, including some crackers.
With the decreasing sales of Crown Pilot crackers, Nabisco could hardly justify the efforts necessary to change the recipe. Then, too, fans might reject a changed product if they detected a different flavor.
An article in the latest Island Journal (Volume Twenty-Four) about the Chebeague Island group’s travels to the Middle East inspired me to wonder if the pita, so common in that area, might go with Maine chowder. When that bread, purchased or homemade, whole wheat or white, is toasted, it resembles a cracker–sort of. Just a thought…
Byrna Porter Weir
Rochester, New York