ESL Lesson | B2 | Food history: the dark history of Graham crackers

Summary

This ESL lesson for B2 English students explores the unexpected "dark history" behind the common Graham cracker. Students will delve into the 19th-century origins of this popular food, learning about its connection to a puritanical movement focused on diet, morality, and self-restraint.

The lesson aims to improve listening comprehension through a video on the topic, expand vocabulary related to health, social movements, and historical concepts, and reinforce the use of the past simple passive voice for discussing historical events. Activities are designed to generate meaningful conversation about food, culture, and the evolution of ideas over time.

Access lesson

Activities

A warm-up discussion where students can share their cultural perspectives on food, health, and morality.
A listening activity where students watch a video detailing the historical context of Graham crackers and complete gap-fill exercises.
A vocabulary matching task to connect key terms from the video (e.g., temperance, bland, nutrition, diet, movement) with their definitions.
A grammar exercise focused on identifying and using the past simple passive voice in historical contexts.
A vocabulary in context activity to reinforce understanding of the new terms through sentence completion.
A grammar practice section where students convert active sentences into the past simple passive.
Speaking practice questions encouraging students to discuss the lesson's themes using newly acquired vocabulary and grammar.

0:07 It was the early 1800s, and Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham

0:12 believed Americans had a big problem—

0:15 not just with their bodies, but with their souls.

0:19 He argued that overindulgence was fueling their baser desires,

0:23 making them immoral and oversexed.

0:27 To curb this corruption, Graham and fellow puritanical reformers

0:32 advocated for food they thought could curb a variety of appetites.

0:39 Following the American Revolution,

0:40 things like excess alcohol use were increasingly perceived

0:45 as blights on social order and civic virtue in a budding nation.

0:50 The 19th century Christian Temperance movement

0:53 encouraged abstinence from alcohol, eventually leading to federal Prohibition.

0:58 But some branches of the movement promoted even more extreme restraint

1:2 across the board.

1:5 These reformers had some special areas of interest, including the bedroom.

1:11 According to Graham,

1:12 even divinely ordained marital sex could fall into harmfully excessive territory

1:18 if it happened more than once a month.

1:21 And like certain Enlightenment philosophers a century before him,

1:25 Graham considered the so-called solitary vice of masturbation

1:29 even more hazardous.

1:31 He claimed it inflamed the brain and depleted the body's energy,

1:36 causing everything from nervous disorders to stunted growth.

1:41 To address this issue and others,

1:43 Graham recommended measures including plenty of sleep— on hard mattresses;

1:48 regular bathing—with cold water; and fresh air— even in frigid temperatures.

1:55 But one of his major points of focus was diet.

1:59 He thought Americans were consuming decadent, flavorful food and drink

2:3 that threw their bodies out of balance, weakened their self-control,

2:8 and aroused un-Christian passions.

2:11 So to suppress their supposedly hyperactive libidos,

2:16 Graham advocated for a vegetarian diet of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

2:22 And it needed to be bland— no pleasure-inciting spices to speak of.

2:28 His signature contribution was Graham bread,

2:31 the precursor to the Graham cracker,

2:34 made from coarse, whole wheat Graham flour.

2:37 He shared the recipe at no cost, encouraging everyone to bake their own.

2:42 It was simple: just add water or milk, yeast, and perhaps a pinch of salt—

2:47 nothing that might overstimulate the senses.

2:51 Positioning himself as a public health advocate,

2:54 Graham wrote books and held public lectures,

2:57 alleging his diet would even help people survive a cholera outbreak.

3:2 However, not everyone was so keen on his moralizing message and tasteless fare—

3:9 including angry bakers who protested outside his talks.

3:13 And Transcendentalist scholar Ralph Waldo Emerson cast doubt

3:18 on the fanaticism of Graham’s movement.

3:21 One newspaper reporter is said to have mockingly dubbed Graham

3:25 a “philosopher of sawdust pudding.”

3:28 And an outraged critic of the Graham diet said it consisted of,

3:31 “swill, starch slosh” and “dishwater.”

3:35 But Graham also inspired ardent followers, who became known as Grahamites.

3:42 Meanwhile, Graham’s focus on digestive health appealed to figures

3:46 like nutritionist James Jackson,

3:48 who ran a health spa in upstate New York.

3:51 Around 1863, Jackson began baking crumbled, granulated Graham flour cakes

3:58 into a cereal he called Granula.

4:1 And, in the 1890s, John Harvey Kellogg, head of another health spa,

4:6 developed corn flakes by steaming, rolling, and baking corn

4:10 into a similarly flavorless food.

4:13 While Jackson was primarily concerned with preventing illness through diet,

4:17 Kellogg continued Graham’s crusade against masturbation.

4:22 He called it “self-abuse,” Implicated it in all manner of ailments,

4:27 and similarly promoted a dull diet to temper overactive sexual appetites.

4:33 But the foods these men popularized would shapeshift

4:37 far beyond their original forms.

4:40 Granola and Corn Flakes underwent a series of saccharine and frosted reinventions.

4:46 And decades after Graham’s death,

4:48 the National Biscuit Company began mass-producing Graham crackers

4:54 with lighter flours and stimulating sweeteners.

4:57 By 1927, people had started sandwiching toasted marshmallows and chocolate

5:3 between Graham crackers,

5:5 which the Girl Scouts christened “Some Mores,”

5:9 and the s’more was born.

5:11 The decadent dessert was essentially the antithesis of Graham’s vision—

5:16 and perhaps the ultimate ironic twist to his legacy.

Vocabulary focus

The vocabulary section introduces terms related to historical social movements, diet, and morality. Key terms include temperance, bland, nutrition, diet, movement, and precursor. Students will learn to use these words to discuss historical contexts and modern-day concepts of food and health.

Grammar focus

This lesson concentrates on the past simple passive voice. This grammatical structure (was/were + past participle) is used when the action's recipient is more important than the performer, or when the performer is unknown, unimportant, or obvious. Students will practice using this form to describe historical events and processes from the video, such as "Graham bread was developed by Sylvester Graham" or "Graham crackers were mass-produced with sweeteners."

Food history: the dark history of Graham crackers

Summary

Activities

Vocabulary focus

Grammar focus

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