Crisp bread

Crispbread

Some wafers of crispbread
Alternative names	Hard bread
Type	Cracker
Place of origin	Sweden
Main ingredients	Rye flour, salt, water

Crispbread (Swedish: knäckebröd, hårt bröd, hårdbröd, spisbröd, knäcke, Danish: knækbrød, Norwegian: knekkebrød, Finnish: näkkileipä, Estonian: näkileib, Icelandic: hrökkbrauð, Faroese: knekkbreyð, German: Knäckebrot or Knäcke, Low German: Knackbrood, Dutch: knäckebröd) is a flat and dry type of bread or cracker, containing mostly rye flour. Crispbreads are light and keep fresh for a very long time. Crispbread is a staple food and was for a long time considered a poor man's diet. However, in recent years there has been renewed interest in crispbread in the Nordic countries.

Crispbread has been baked in central Sweden since 500 AD. It was made as round wafers with a hole in the middle so the bread could be stored on sticks under the roof. Traditional crispbread was invented about 500 years ago.Finland and Sweden have long traditions in crispbread consumption, and crispbread has been known in most households since the 1800s. Traditionally, crispbreads were baked just twice a year; following harvest and again in the spring when frozen river waters began to flow. Traditional western Finnish crispbread was (and still is) made in the form of a round flat loaf with a hole in the middle to facilitate storage on long poles hanging near the ceiling. Sweden's first industrial crispbread bakery, AU Bergmans enka, began its production in in 1850. Rectangular Knäckebrot was first manufactured in Germany in 1927 and has remained popular and readily available there ever since.