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Hot Crisped Crackers
Thin wafers or crackers should be toasted for three minutes in a hot oven. If Boston crackers are preferred, split them, arrange the halves rough side up on a plate, lay a bit of butter on each, and brown them in the oven.
A two-line method that still works, provided you respect the short time and the hot oven. The whole point is dry heat driving off the staleness crackers pick up in the box.
- "A hot oven"Period usage generally means something in the region of 400-450F, though the book gives no figure. At that sort of heat three minutes is plausible for thin wafers, and they will colour fast, so watch them.
- Boston crackersA thick, hard, unsweetened New England cracker of the type still represented by the Vermont Common Cracker, which splits along its seam into two halves with a rough interior face. Thin modern saltines will not split; treat them as the "thin wafers" of the first sentence.
- Rough side upThe torn interior surface has far more surface area than the smooth outside, so it takes the butter and browns into something close to a crouton. Turning them smooth side up wastes the split entirely.
- How much butterThe original says only "a bit," and gives no quantity. Err on the small side and use softened butter; too much and the cracker soaks rather than crisps.
- Split crackers take longerSplit crackers -- the recipe gives no time for these, only "brown them in the oven," which implies longer than the three minutes allowed for thin wafers. Judge by colour.
- A plate in the ovenThe original says to arrange them on a plate, which would have gone into the oven as it stood. A sheet pan, with the crackers transferred to the serving dish afterwards, does the same job.
"Soup accessories" was a common heading in American cookbooks of the period, covering what was set beside the soup plate: croutons, cheese straws, noodles, forcemeat balls and crackers of every description. The Boston or common cracker is a hard, unsweetened round long associated with New England chowders and oyster stews, where it was split, buttered and toasted or crumbled into the bowl. Heating crackers before serving was a practical fix as much as a flourish: before airtight packaging, crackers came from a barrel or tin box and were apt to have gone soft, and a few minutes of dry oven heat restored the snap.