In my cupboard there are four packages of cookies (good cookies) and five bars of imported chocolate. All are unopened.

Since my enthusiastic purchases (all on sale, I should hasten to add), something very strange (for me) has occurred: I seem to have lost my sweet tooth.

For a woman who remembers only too keenly her years (many years) as “Tubby Susan,” I view this change as one of those unexpected blessings that creep into the aging lives of many of us. The news is particularly pleasing since I have learned that cookie (and, I imagine, chocolate) makers load their products with something that encourages the eater to return for “just one more.” I know only too well where that can lead.

Please don’t think this an admission I’ve given up all sweets. I could never do that. But my new “drug” of choice has become the graham cracker. It satisfies my desire for something sweet and yet it’s so easy to stop at one. Oh, I’ll still eat those cookies and candies but slowly – with many more graham crackers in between.

Of course, while munching I grew curious about what I was eating. Could there be a story there? Oh, boy, is there ever! and what fun!

For starters, I hadn’t known the name came from graham flour. It’s still sold today – but often called “whole wheat pastry flour” and is milled from a soft wheat low in protein. “Mellow and flavorful, it adds whole grain nutrition to pastries, without density or heft. If that isn’t enough to love, it gives graham crackers their nutty sweetness – and we’re eternally grateful.” So say the people at the King Arthur Flour Co.

In graham flour the bran and germ are coarsely ground while finely-ground unbleached wheat flour is added for flavor. When the three are mixed together the result is a coarse-textured flour which bakes well and has a good shelf life. Besides the crackers, it is also recommended for pie crusts. Hmm.

Rather interesting, one might say, but, then again, hardly that interesting. Oh? There’s more. I haven’t yet gotten to Sylvester.

Yup, there was a Sylvester Graham, Reverend Sylvester Graham in fact. Originator of the Graham Diet, Reverend Graham pushed his cracker as part of his regimen to curb unhealthy carnal appetites which he considered the source of problems too numerous to mention. His diet eliminated meats, condiments, coffee and tea. (If that sounds like Mr. Kellogg whom we met last June, Kellogg did indeed make use of many of Graham’s ideas.) Only Graham’s thoughts on moderation struck me as anything but. His “lifestyle recommendations, which he felt had implications for moral character, included wearing loose-fitting clothing (with the belief that garments should be utilitarian and not constrictive), taking cold baths, sleeping on hard bedding, having three scheduled meals without snacks, unheated food, dancing, exercising and relaxing – though there were strict parameters on making sure everything was balanced.”

A leading figure in the temperance movement as well (wouldn’t you know it?), he advocated eating fresh vegetables and fruit and decreasing one’s sex drive. I found no evidence he sired any offspring.

Sylvester’s father was 72 when he was born in 1794 and died while the boy was still toddling. His mother suffered from “emotional and mental trauma” leaving poor Sylvester to be passed from house to house as he grew. Sampling various occupations, he chose to become a Presbyterian minister. His theories were soon so widespread that eventually he gave up the ministry for the lecture circuit. He was forty-five when he retired from lecturing, turning to the life of a poet as he fought various physical and mental problems. He was able to co-found the American Vegetarian Society in 1859 but died just a year later, aged fifty-seven.

For years his teaching continued to inspire controversy. Bakers were outraged by his showing contempt for commercially produced white bread which discarded the nutrients of the grains while adding alum and chlorine to whiten the flour. He believed that all the grain should be used in the flour with no added chemicals, that milling and baking bread this way would remedy the poor health found in America after the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.

Not much here that I’d care to espouse but I remain grateful for the cracker … and reach for another.

Just one more.

Susan Crossett has lived outside Cassadaga for more than 20 years. A lifetime of writing led to these columns as well as two novels. Her Reason for Being was published in 2008 with Love in Three Acts appearing in 2014. Copies are available at the Cassadaga ShurFine and Papaya Arts on the Boardwalk in Dunkirk. Information on all the Musings, the books and the author may be found at Susancrossett.com.