These “cookies” are becoming a tradition in my family. 

One year around the beginning of December my mom told me my dad wanted to make Eastern Shore Christmas Candy to mail off to all of our relatives, so my mom and I went to our local warehouse store and loaded up on Ghirardelli chocolate chips, premium saltines, butter, brown sugar, pecans and parchment paper.  We found some pretty tins and ribbons at the dollar store. Then she dropped me off at my house and I elfed it up in the kitchen.

Do yourself a favor and hop over to elfyourself.com  The results are hilarious!

The “bark” as our relatives referred to it (and as some people at a party in Montgomery County confidently informed me it was – in a not very Christmassy way) was an insta-hit. My cousin called on the phone to say she hoped this was going to be a tradition and did I send any for her son and husband?  It was awarded the term “Christmas crack” not original, of course, but an honor. (Or maybe they were just being literal .)

 

Photo Credit: https://mic.com/articles/88015/what-happens-to-your-brain-on-sugar-explained-by-science#.7C6gjAcOd

I believe my dad saw the recipe in The Daily Times newspaper of Salisbury, Maryland, in approximately 2009, or maybe 2011.  Tracy Sahler has/had a column there writing about recipes on the Eastern Shore. We’ve lost the newspaper clipping, or maybe there never was one, but thanks to the modern miracle of the internet and allrecipes, around the end of November there is a flurry of googling for this recipe from our IP addresses. Screen shots are printed and shared.  

This morning  I ran a finger down the edge of the pan to scoop up the stray not-yet-hardened toffee that lingered in a skirt around the mass of cooling crackers topped with smooth melted chocolate and crushed pecan pieces and I was Little Runner of the Longhouse. 

  As I scooped left over drips of toffee off of the sauce pan with the rubber scraper I was Laura Ingalls Wilder making pulled molasses candy in her sod house (I don’t know if they made pulled molasses candy in the sod house – an internet search reveals that this happened in Farmer Boy, which was a book I never got around to reading.  We couldn’t find it for the longest time AND I wanted to read all of the Little House books first, then I guess I got older. But I did have a Laura Ingalls Wilder cookbook and my mom and I made the molasses recipe from that.)

For Little Runner of the Longhouse and Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Little House on the Prairie, there was much excitement around the event of these sugar candy opportunities.  It was magical as a 10-year old to make their simple candies in my own childhood home as a special treat.

When I realized that what I was making for these "cookies" was essentially delicious butter toffee I was excited, delighted, and horrified (because with great power comes great responsibility). For about the last 6 years I have avoided making the saltine toffee cookies, for a few reasons.  For several years I had to travel a lot so the making of them to send out fell to other family members.  In addition to that, a little bit of the sugary treat feels like too much to me, and I just can’t resist nibbling the little bits that crack off and are left behind in the pan so I don't have them around.  Because I enjoy this treat so much, I decided this year to break my hiatus and make some to share with my Florida neighbors who have been so kind to us over the last 18 months of our residence here.  After a week of sugar rushing, I’m swearing back off the toffee sauce, at least until next year, when the decade long tradition continues.

In the comments:
I'd love to hear about your family traditional recipes;
Your explanation of how to classify this food according to the cube rule; 
Themes of contradiction around the positivity that keeps you participating in tradition versus the affect that participation has on your every day life;
Your thoughts on the terms "christmassy" or "chrismassy"  which I have been noticing this year;
How does time play into tradition and what is the significance of a decade when it comes to tradition.