The "A Cheap Snack With A Ritzy Name" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Having a snack of Jif peanut butter and Kraft marshmallow creme on top of a Ritz cracker.  Actually I'm having about a dozen of the small treats, since as the saying goes...you can't have just one!  And, Ritz crackers are the only cracker that tastes good enough to be part of my tri-layer snack.  I'm not quite sure when Jif started making their peanut butter or when Kraft began to make their marshmallow, but I found out all about the Ritz cracker in my latest edition of The Saturday Evening Post.  

Starting my plate for the first round of snacks.

 The Ritz Cracker is a brand of snack cracker that was introduced by Nabisco in 1934.  The buttery cracker is a circular, slightly salted on one side cracker with a scalloped edge to it.  A half-dozen of two-inch round crackers contain a bit over 80 calories, a couple grams of protein and half a dozen grams of fat.  If you want to make a few for yourself, place the crackers on a paper plate, coat each one with a good coating of peanut butter and a big helping of the marshmallow creme.  I usually eat them with a glass of non-fat milk.  I don't dunk them as I do with cookies, but do enjoy the milk with the crackers.  The cracker was invented during the Depression since they could be made at a very inexpensive price.  Perfect time in history to start to sell something like a cracker.  The name for the cracker was borrowed from hotel celebrity César Ritz, whose glamorous hotels earned renown as symbols of opulence.

Batch #1

 "Puttin' On The Ritz" was a song written by Irving Berlin that told about rich people and their life styles, thus the name for the buttery rich cracker.  It was a known fact that most of the shopping during the Depression was done by women so buying a cracker known as a Ritz cracker would promise a "bite of the good life."  A box of the crackers in 1934 cost 19 cents.  Within a year over five billion boxes of the crackers had been sold, which worked out to 40 crackers for every man, woman and child in America.  Took all but three years before it was the best selling cracker in the world.  The logo for the cracker was designed by Sydney Stern who created the blue circle/yellow lettering logo design which was inspired by the circular label inside his hat.  About 10 years ago Ritz was said to be the "best perceived snack brand" among American consumers in a YouGov poll.  The cracker now comes in Low Sodium, Reduced Fat, Whole Wheat, Honey Wheat, Roasted Vegetable, Bacon, Garlic Butter, Honey Butter, Hint of Salt and Original Ritz.  You know that the only one that would taste good with peanut butter and marshmallow on it has to be the Original Ritz.  If you have never tried the snack, buy the ingredients and make a box full for yourself.  I guarantee you will love the taste of them.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.