#5 Date Bars 1945

The finished bars - full of promise.

"Graham crackers!?"

In what I think of as a fairly well-stocked pantry, I haven't kept graham crackers since my children were about five.

"Doug," I called to my husband, "I'm going to buy graham crackers."

In the aisle of my basic neighborhood grocery store, I was horrified to learn that graham crackers, something I'd considered wholesome snacks, no longer hold up to health food standards (partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil and high fructose corn syrup). My image of graham crackers as nutritious snacks lies in its history. Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister, invented them in 1829. It turns out he promoted his "Graham bread," made of coarse whole wheat flour, to curb excessive lust. He also preached temperance and a vegetarian diet. Little did I know this was the heritage of one of my own favorite snacks as a child - I couldn't get enough of these crackers with butter and jam sandwiched between them. You could say I lusted after them. But I digress...

Use all 18 crackers in a package for 1 1/4 cup of crumbs.

I dutifully threw 14 graham crackers into the food processor and came up short; 14 graham crackers no longer make the required quantity. The recipe notes (which I should have read right off) calls for 1 1/4 cup of crumbs. Even graham crackers are victims of shrinking product size, which masks price increases. It now takes the whole inner package of 18 crackers to give the 1 1/4 cup of crumbs.

Imagine these cookies baked without a foil pan liner.

After combining with nuts, date pieces, 3 eggs and minimal leavening, I wondered at the editors' note about lining the 9 X 9" pan. I was to crisscross two sheets of foil (Reynolds Wrap had not been sold until 1947), which would prevent the batter from touching the pan itself. What kind of mess did the original recipe create? I soon learned.

After 30 minutes of cooling, I tried to lift the block of cookie bars by the foil, but the foil quickly ripped and dropped the cookies back into the pan. Where the batter touched the pan in the tiny corner wedges, the cookies stuck fast. I ran a knife around the pan rim. The baked mass seemed in no danger of breaking apart, so I turned the pan over, onto a piece of parchment. I oh-so-slowly peeled back the foil to remove it from the cookie block.

I'll now confess that I cut these in my car, and took these cookies to share with my basketry retreat planning committee in a library conference room. I was glad I'd brought more than one cookie variety with me. Although my committee members were polite, these are better door-stop material than food. Both flavor and texture are lacking. I have never tried to eat a memory foam mattress, but biting into this cookie is exactly how I'd imagine the experience, except the mattress wouldn't leave your teeth coated with goo.

I really tried. I made these bars last weekend and I tasted them each day hoping to find a single redeeming quality. Their photo shows such promise, much like 1945, the year this recipe was published. The world anticipated decades of peace and prosperity at the end of  the war. I wish I could say the cookies that represent Gourmet Magazine in that year were an apt tribute to the country's optimism at the time, a turning point in history. These bars don't cut it.

You can find this recipe here, but don't bother.

Sources: About graham cracker history:  http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_053.html; About product introductions in the market: http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1999_3183896/down-home-favorites-vie-with-classics-for-status-t.html