Going crackers for substitutions

If you want to keep the holiday going, July 5 is National Graham Crackers Day. I'm sure most people think of s'mores, or maybe crumb crusts, when they think of recipes involving graham crackers. The sweet little sheets can be more versatile than that, though, as The American' Woman's Cook Book (ed. Ruth Berolzheimer, 1942) reminds us. 

I'm guessing that Graham Cracker Cream Cake was for when the cook was running a little low on flour and/or sugar (or trying to work within ration limits) since all those graham cracker crumbs could help make up for any shortfalls. (Plus, the shortening is probably cheaper than real butter.) And now, with grocery prices consistently going crazy and threats of shortages on the horizon, it's always nice to have old recipes to remind us to be flexible in using what we've got. Cooks have always used a little ingenuity when they had to. (Bonus points that they're not using their ingenuity to create, say, a Jell-O and tuna salad pie!)

If you made this with some applesauce or mashed banana instead of the eggs, it could fit right in with the modern era, 80+ years later.