The Saltine still has some hipster cachet: The new single from Jack White's Blunderbuss album is "Sixteen Saltines."
05.03.2012 | NORTHAMPTON - Richard Cooper, owner of the State Street Market, shows off the new round Saltine.You can’t call Saltines square anymore.
For a century, the four-sided, salt-sprinkled crackers were classic comfort food – bland enough for breakfast or bedtime snacks, soothing enough to help hangovers or morning sickness.
Now, Nabisco is rolling out a new, 21st Century version of its old favorite: a round, cookie-shaped Saltine that will be test-marketed across New England for the next four months.
In stores across Pioneer Valley, a new generation of Saltines is arriving on shelves, generating confusion and debate among snack food connoisseurs while raising larger philosophical questions.
“What was wrong with the old ones?,” said Jessica Tanner, 24, assistant manager at the State Street Fruit Market deli in Northampton, which received its first shipment of round Saltines Thursday morning.
“You see this all the time. If something isn’t broke, why fix it?” she added.
Cashier Emily R. Willard, 24, of Northampton, has a different reaction to the new cracker. “I think they’re awesome,” she said.
Outside the store, Steven Jackson, a Los Angeles resident visiting relatives in town, seemed less impressed. After being told that a new style of Saltines had just arrived, Jackson seemed unfazed.
“They’re round?,” Jackson said. “So what's the point?”
Beyond its size, the new Saltines come in a smaller box (10.5 ounces vs. the traditional 16) with different packaging. But the essential recipe remains the same, said Nabisco spokesman Basil T. Maglaris.
The changes are designed to present Saltines in a “relevant and contemporary way,” according to Maglaris, who said customers can contact the company’s hotline at 1-800-NABISCO,
“We’d really do want to know what people think,” he added.
If the new product is successful, four-sided Saltines could be phased out, said Claire D’Amour-Daley, vice president of marketing for Big Y World Class Market.
So far, the new crackers have been selling well, but the novelty has not worn off yet, D’Amour-Daley said. “Whether they do well forever is another question. Sometimes old habits die hard,” she added.
Given the square Saltine’s unusual place in American culture, replacing it could be difficult.
Few foods are more versatile, whether eaten by itself, mixed with soup, cheese, meat and fish, included in military C-Rations. In some southern states, mixing Saltines with spearmint or menthol is considered a breakfast and a baldness cure.
Saltine eating contests, meanwhile, have given teenagers indigestion and worse for decades.
For an old cracker, the Saltine even has some hipster cachet. The new single from Jack White’s "Blunderbuss album", currently number one on Billboard Magazine’s Top 200, is “Sixteen Saltines.”
All of which helps explain why blogger Dave Hill lashed out at Nabisco recently after learning about the experiment.
In an obscenity-laced tirade titled "The Last Thing I Need," Hill said the arrival of the new Saltines was nothing less than a snack attack on his sanity.
“Just when I thought the snack food industry was done making my life a living hell ...,” Hill began.
“I and about 700 billion other people had been doing just fine with (old Saltines) with for pretty much as long as I can remember,” he added.