Crispbread
flat and dry type of bread or cracker
Crispbread is a flat and dry type of bread, containing mostly rye flour. Crispbreads are lightweight and keep fresh for a very long time due to their lack of water. Crispbread is a staple food and was for a long time considered a poor man's diet.
Origins
Sweden, Finland, and Norway have long traditions in crispbread consumption. The origin of the crispbread came from the earlier spisbröd 'stovebread' which was a similar but thicker kind of bread. The Swedish knäcka means 'to crack' or 'to break', however knäckebröd 'crispbread' originates from the old word kruseknäcke, referring to a specific tool that was used to roll the crispbread dough.
These breads were baked from at least the sixth century in central Sweden. They were usually hung above the stove to be dried. Traditional crispbread in Sweden and western Finland is made in this tradition with the form of a round flat loaf with a hole in the middle to facilitate storage on long poles hanging near the ceiling. It may also have been a way to keep the rats away from them.
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This entry incorporates text from “Crispbread” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.