Snacks are ingrained within U.S. consciousness. We’re a snacking culture. It’s built into our DNA.
Peanuts—perhaps America’s first snack food—traveled the seas from their South American origins to Africa, and then finally to the young British colonies. Not long after, pretzels followed German and Dutch immigrants to the newly formed United States. Popcorn, a popular American street food in the 1800s, is synonymous with special events like fairs, festivals and—of course—trips to the movie theater. And while varied versions of toothsome hardtack have existed for hundreds of years, it took American ingenuity to bring the lightly leavened—and dramatically more appealing—saltine cracker to life in the 1870s.