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An Ode To The Saltine Cracker
I salute you, friend to all soups
It is soup season, which is to say it is cold and dark. There is still snow on the sidewalk from last week’s storm. I am wearing my favorite fuzzy socks.
The opposite of snow and sub-zero temperatures isn’t sunshine and warmth. It’s a bowl of tomato soup, steaming. Or beef stew or lobster bisque. A few slurps from a spoon and bones thaw, then coziness creeps up legs. The winter is for soup, and if I were a bowl of split peas, I’d be pretty pleased with myself. But what about the saltine? The humble soda cracker can be crumbled and snapped in two or eaten whole in one bite. Don’t tell soup that a small stack of crackers stands behind every pot of gumbo or cup of borscht. Saltine crackers. Waiting. Ready. Hopeful.
This is a love letter to saltines, the brave older sibling of the potato chip, friend to all soups, and the unsung hero of the all-night diner.
In my life, I have had some money and no money, and there have been times I have eaten well — steak and shrimp and more shrimp — and times I have had to count beans, but so long as I had at least one sleeve of crackers I never went hungry. Well, one sleeve of crackers and a can of soup, or at least milk and butter, potatoes and onions.
Those are the ingredients to potato soup, my dad’s recipe. I survived a six-week-long February in New York City on potato soup once. I made enough to fill a bathtub. That meal isn’t complete without a saltine cracker floating like a raft. Let me revise again: so long as I had a sleeve of crackers, I ate well.
I have made three soups this winter, the first being chili, which is soup-like. I serve it with garnishes like green onions and cheese. I also serve it with saltines because chili and crackers like to slow dance.
I’ve made chicken noodle soup. A noodle is a long, wet cracker but does not possess the saltine’s secret power, the crunch, the snap when split in two. One never gets bored with a cracker’s snap because every snap is unique, a brief song, no two are alike.
Lastly, I also made a lentil stew, and sometimes, I would soak a corner of a saltine in the green broth until it was too…
