MARK MY WORD: NATION'S NIBBLERS HAVE MADE SNACKING A FINE ART

Hail to our nation of nibblers, our society of snackers and magnificent munchers.

We are so consumed by snacking that only 2 percent of Americans claim they don't snack. For most Americans, snacking is a national pasttime.

The people at Melba Toast know that's the case. How else can you explain how this lowly piece of toast could be coveted by so many people?

Of course, it's not the toast that we really like. It's all those fattening dips that we can spread on top.

Melba Toast is 100 years old this year. It's older than ice cream cones, caramel popcorn and the toaster oven.

Of course, this product is so toasted that you could be eating petrified wood and not know it.

To celebrate the fact that Melba Toast hasn't been replaced by rice cakes in our culinary conscience, the Melba Toast people have sent out a whole packet of press releases designed to make reporters and editors hunger for those toasty crackers.

Snack foods didn't always come in colorful, air-bloated bags that are sold at inflated prices.

Popcorn dates back over 5,600 years, although it didn't really hit its stride until Hollywood discovered that movies make you munch.

Pretzels made their first appearance in the Middle Ages when monks in southern France twisted dough to resemble arms folded in prayer.

Of course, they got carried away with their work and soon those dough arms were all over the place.

The monks munched away at the stuff, eventually setting up concession stands at major league ballparks.

Potato chips were created in 1853 for railroad magnet Cornelius Vanderbilt, who complained that his spuds were too thick.

Soon he was devouring whole bags of chips, not to mention rival railroads.

Melba Toast owes its existence to Australian opera singer Nellie Melba, who was the Michael Jordan of her time except that she slam-dunked those high notes instead of a basketball.

One evening in 1897, she was dining at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

She protested that her bread was too thick for a late-night snack of pate. She sent the chef back to the kitchen for lighter fare.

He prepared a thinly sliced piece of toasted bread, which became known as Melba Toast because he couldn't think of any better name.

Soon the toast was a bigger toast of the town than Melba.

In the 1930s, a New York City couple started mass producing the toasty snack using a heavy clothes iron to keep the toast flat in the oven.

It sure beat ironing clothes.

Margie Weil and her husband, Bert, eventually came up with a special oven to cook all that Melba Toast.

In the 1950s, guacamole became the favorite party dip of Elvis fans and space aliens, and Melba Toast was there.

In the 1960s, Melba Toast reached new heights as snacking became part of America's space program, which put us light years ahead of the Russians, who were still relying principally on the staying power of vodka.

Just think, none of this would have occurred if Nellie Melba hadn't been such a finicky eater.

Most importantly, we'd all go crackers without a good supply of dip on hand.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.