Many are the joys of a cracker. Not only does it provide lovely textural crunch to go with your topping of choice – be that cheese, fruit, vegetables or a simple spread – but the cracker itself acts like a little edible plate for transporting food from plate to mouth. It’s much more convenient in many ways than a piece of bread, which requires a certain degree of propping up. Crispbreads are eaten the same way in Scandinavia as bread is here – a hefty stack of them accompanies every meal, ready for dipping, scooping and piling up of goodies.
Crispbreads have long been an important staple in Scandinavia, largely for practical reasons – they’ve always been favoured for being easy to bake and, perhaps more importantly, easy to store in harsh conditions. That’s reflected in a huge variation of styles and recipes across the country today, but generally speaking, Swedish bakers have been making so-called knäckebröd since the sixteenth century, baking them on hot stones and stacking them on sticks, tucked into the rafters where they would stay dry for months. Unlike the UK, which has always been relatively densely populated, Sweden’s population has always been spread sparsely throughout the land. As a result, a huge variety of different recipes and techniques have evolved in silos, confined to settlements that were rather isolated.
These crispbreads may be ubiquitous in Scandinavian food, but they’re not all created equal. Just as we have rediscovered the joy of sourdough and traditional baking methods, so too we are embracing traditional sourdough methods for baking knäckebröd, thanks to Peter’s Yard. Perhaps that’s why so many chefs choose Peter’s Yard to go with their cheese courses – delicate, thin and incredibly crisp, they pack way more flavour than your average crispbread. The British company has been making these crispbreads for ten years now, and while they might sound like a simple thing on the surface, Peter’s Yard crispbreads have their roots in traditional Nordic baking practices, which go back nearly 1,500 years.