The graham cracker ( /ˈɡræm/, /ˈɡreɪm/, or /ˈɡreɪ.əm/; also graham wafer) was developed in 1829 in Bound Brook, New Jersey, by Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham. The true graham cracker is made with graham flour, a combination of finely-ground unbleached-wheat flour with the wheat bran and germ coarsely-ground and added back in providing nutrition and flavor. While graham crackers started out as a mild food, unsweetened or mildly sweetened, they are more commonly known as a sugar and/or honey sweetened baked good that approaches a cookie (or the British English term biscuit).

The Graham cracker was originally conceived of as a health food as part of the Graham Diet, a regimen to suppress what he considered unhealthy carnal urges, the source of many maladies according to Graham. Reverend Graham would often lecture on "self-abuse" as it was commonly called at the time. One of his many theories was that one could curb one's sexual appetite by eating bland foods. Another man who held this belief was Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of the corn flakes cereal.