A doff of the double-billed birthday brim to the “Twin Towers of Scottish Letters & Science,” brothers Alexander and Graham Bell. Born conjoined — which is to say, clutching one another’s paws as they hurtled headlong down the exit ramp — March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, the Bell brothers rarely left one another’s side, whether squiring the Hubbard sisters, Mabel (Alexander) and Pauline (Graham), or putzing (Graham) and futzing (Alexander) about the laboratory. Alexander (pictured left or, possibly, right) was inclined towards invention, while Graham (pictured right or, possibly, left) was the food scientist and ‘twas the later’s experimentation with fine-ground white flour and coarse-ground wheat bran which resulted in a delightful, honey-sweetened, digestive biscuit. Originally deemed the “Wise Cracker” by his “Smart Alex” brother, the “Graham® Cracker” was larger than a conventional soda cracker, purposefully designed in an oversized square shape so as to fit "squarely" in the brothers' matching engineer's shirt pockets. That it would later accommodate a square of Cadbury® chocolate and a single, melted marshmallow was not happenstance, methinks, but rather the snacking gods at work, ensuring immortality for what brother Alexander would call the “S'more.” (As in, “Jolly good, let’s have s'more of those melty mallow and cocoa-sweetened treats, brother!”) The brothers Bell would acquire some 18 patents during their lifetime, for such varied inventions as the metal detector, the ripened red "Bell" pepper and something of a crude “teléfono,” but ‘tis the Graham cracker for which they will be most closely associated. Methinks 'twould be a great day to have a s'more and a smile in honour of these two Great Scotts. Brothers Alexander and Graham Bell would have been 173 years young today.
