When Orton heard we were writing this book, he sent samples from the
store his father started in 1897 which is still going strong. Together
with the Vermont Good Old-fashioned Natural Cheese and the Sage came a
handy handmade Cracker Basket, all wicker, ten crackers long and just
one double cracker wide. A snug little casket for those puffy,
old-time, two-in-one soda biscuits that have no salt to spoil the
taste of the accompanying cheese. Each does double duty because it's
made to split in the middle, so you can try one kind of cheese on one
half and another on t'other, or sandwich them between.
Some Pied Piper took the country cheese and crackers to the corner
saloon and led a free-lunch procession that never faltered till
Prohibition came. The same old store cheese was soon pepped up as
saloon cheese with a saucer of caraway seeds, bowls of pickles,
peppers, pickled peppers and rye bread with plenty of mustard,
pretzels or cheese straws, smearcase and schwarzbrot. Beer and cheese
forever together, as in the free-lunch ditty of that great day:
I am an Irish hunter;
I am, I ain't.
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