Oatmeal Crackers, Lucky Pennies, and Mary Miller

This week’s recipe comes from the section in the book called Guide for Nut Cookery, 1899, and it seems harmless enough: Oatmeal Crackers.

This is the recipe I spoke about last week, the one that doesn’t provide any instructions other than “Mix.” That’s great, Mary. (This recipe didn’t have an author, so I just made up a whole person. Mary Miller is the woman I’m crediting with this recipe.)

Do I bake these crackers? Do I let them sit on the counter and harden until they’ve achieved that cracker crunch? I had so many questions and no real answers. So I split the recipe, baked half of them in a 400‑degree oven, and let the other half sit on the counter in the sun.

Why the sun, you ask?

Well, I assumed that was what Mary did back in 1899—just cooked by the heat of the sun. It seemed like logical thinking at the time.

One of the other “issues” with this recipe was that it specifically called for 1 lb. of oatmeal (not the rolled oats). I set out to my local Publix to get the oatmeal (not the rolled kind) and nut meal. I had everything else at home—the water, sugar, and salt—and I naïvely assumed the grocery store would provide me with oats and nut meal.

I was pretty sure I knew what nut meal was, but not at all sure I could get it in a modern‑day grocery store. I was correct. So I had to hoof it across town to my local health food store. I was certain they would have nut meal, but not so certain about the oats. Again, I was correct, so I just bought some organic rolled oats and headed home.

It seems that after an exhaustive search on the internet, Mary meant for me to use oatmeal similar to, but not at all like, flour. The internet suggested I find Scottish, stone‑ground, or steel‑cut oatmeal and then pulse it in the food processor or blender until it resembled coarse cornmeal, but not flour. It would have been smart of me to do that search before I bought the rolled oats (even though Mary specifically told me not to use them). So I headed back to the grocery store. I knew Publix had both Scottish and steel‑cut oats.

As I was walking into the grocery store, I got distracted—as I often am. I looked down and saw a penny. Normally I stop and pick those up because, you know, “See a penny, pick it up, and all day you’ll have good luck.” I’ve even written a post about it here.

But now that they’ve stopped making new pennies, does that mean the random pennies on the ground are even more lucky? I feel like we could all use a bit of luck these days. I was in a hurry, and the penny was tails‑side up, so I didn’t grab it.

Then I thought: I was going to need all the luck I could get to make these crackers even a little bit edible and not something I’d just toss to the deer in my yard. So I turned around and grabbed it, even though it was tails‑side up.

Armed with my Scottish oats and my new lucky penny, I headed home to start mixing. Aside from the pulsing of the oats, this recipe was fairly easy to produce and actually didn’t taste all that bad. I did, however, feed the unbaked ones to the deer in my yard, hoping they would leave my Rose of Sharon plants alone. Only time will tell if that works or makes matters even worse. I have visions of them walking to the front door and knocking (because in my brain a hungry deer will knock), looking for Mary and her delicious deer crackers.

As I was sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of tea and some of Mary’s crackers, I thought about how hard life must have been for Mary. I mean, I assume it was hard, but she managed to figure out how to make a little treat for her nine kids (again, I’m assuming here). I thought about me in 2026 and how I will always go out of my way to make a little treat for anyone in my orbit.

Whether it’s my husband’s favorite oatmeal raisin cookies (which he will tell you I don’t make often enough), chocolate chip cookies for my son when his heart was broken as a teenager, or almond croissants because I know they are my daughter’s favorite—I will always show the people I love that I love them through flour, sugar, and eggs. (Which seemed like the perfect name for my bakery all those years ago.)

Baking and cooking will always be my love language. However, next week, when I am to make something called Sabbath Peanut Loaf by Eva Kerr, I guess I’ll see just how much my family loves me back. I might invite my brother‑in‑law over because that man loves himself a Sabbath loaf, and I have often said he will eat anything. I’ve given him the nickname Mikey, and if you are old enough to get that reference, you’re my people.