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Pancake A Global History - Ken Albala
Pancake A Global History - Ken Albala
A Global History
Ken Albala
Already published
Hamburger Andrew F. Smith
Pizza Carol Helstosky
Forthcoming
Spices Fred Czarra
Pie Janet Clarkson
Beer Peter La France
Cake Nicola Humble
Caviar Nicola Fletcher
Chocolate Sarah Moss
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Curry Colleen Taylor Sen
Fish and Chips Panikos Panayi
Hot Dog Bruce Kraig
Lobster Elisabeth Townsend
Tea Helen Saberi
Tomato Deborah A. Duchon
Pancake
A Global History
Ken Albala
Published by Reaktion Books Ltd
Great Sutton Street
London
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published
Albala, Ken,
Pancake : a global history. (Edible)
. Pancakes, waffles, etc. . Pancakes, waffles, etc.
History
I. Title
.
-:
Contents
Recipes
Select Bibliography
Websites and Associations
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index
Introduction:
What is a Pancake?
Blueberry pancakes are best with berries submerged in the batter. Here
they peer through unscathed.
stick to the pan. For savoury ingredients, this step is less
important. Shredded spring onions or chives benefit from
the direct heat and decorate the finished product. For the
adventurous palate, anything can be thrown in: nuts, leftover
vegetables, grated cheese, smoked salmon or bacon. All these
can be cooked in the batter or sealed in the rolled or folded
pancake after cooking. Just be sure not to load too much into
the batter lest it resist cohesion while cooking.
As for the cooking medium, butter is ideal, but one
should never use more than a smidgen to prevent sticking, or
the pancake comes out greasy. Oil also works, as does lard or
bacon grease. Duck fat yields remarkable results, preferably
with savoury pancakes. Non-stick pans allow you to use less
fat, but are rarely really good conductors of heat. Cast iron is
lovely, but makes flipping nearly impossible. But then, few
pancakes truly benefit from a toss in the air and some will
actually splatter; a gentle turn with a spatula is fine. Some
contend that a pancake should never be turned more than
once, but this must be pure superstition. This next sugges-
tion may sound absurdly fastidious, but it really does improve
practically any pancake. If you are making several pancakes
and need to keep them warm, haphazard stacking causes
the ambient steam of those freshly cooked to seep into the
others, making them all soggy. Try placing the fresh pancakes
on a rack in a warm oven. Even the solitary pancake is better
for spending a brief sojourn on a raised rack so the steam can
dissipate. I have even been seen waving my pancake in the air
for a moment before plopping it on a plate.
Of all the pancakes I have ever made or eaten, there is
one favourite unconventional admittedly, related to a souffl
and fairly complicated that is well worth the effort and which
I humbly encourage readers to try. I have a pathological
aversion to measurements, so one must succumb to inexact-
ness here and allow ones inner pancake to speak through
the basic procedure. A runnier batter naturally makes thinner
cakes; this batter should be so thick and so inflated that it must
be scooped gently from the bowl with a rubber spatula.
To make Pancakes
that these are the genuine article. Some of Glasses recipes use
only the typical three spoonfuls of flour, but others instruct
to add flour until a batter of a proper Thickness forms, and
this may be the printed recipe with which American
colonists were first familiar. That Charlotte Mason includes a
recipe for New England Pancakes among many varieties in
The Ladys Assistant of is also a good indication that a
The encour-
aged citizens to
eat cornmeal
during World War
so the govern-
ment could send
wheat, which was
considered more
nutritious, to
soldiers on the
front.
Hoecakes were
probably never
cooked on a hoe,
though this image
suggests a shovel
might work.
Cooking buckwheat pancakes on an old-fashioned griddle stovetop in
the s.
Lurid red pancakes made with beets were a novelty in th-century America.
in fat and are really crisp round fritters. What we know as a
pancake, baked on a flat griddle or spider (which comes with
its own legs to stand over hot embers) she calls fritters or
flat-jacks. Both are made with the same batter: a half pint of
milk, spoonfuls of sugar, or eggs, a teaspoon of dis-
solved pearlash (potassium carbonate, an alkali used as leav-
ening and patented by one Samuel Hopkins in actu-
ally the very first patent ever granted). The batter was
spiced with cinnamon or cloves, salt and rose water or
lemon brandy. In place of eggs, lively emptings can be used
(yeast from brewing beer) or, with cornmeal, saleratus is
used (an early name for baking soda). Even more interesting
is the practice of making pancakes out of flip which is a
mug of beer with molasses and a glass of rum, heated with
a hot poker until it foams, then thickened with flour (show-
ing a possible connection to flip-jacks or flap-jacks).
Remarkably, the flour she refers to is either corn or rye, and
even leftover rice can be mixed into the batter.
The willingness to use alternative types of flour seems to
have been much greater in the past than today. Sarah Josepha
Hale in the Good Housekeeper () makes cakes with a quart of
buckwheat and a handful of cornmeal leavened with yeast and
cold water, nothing more. Made with cornmeal and a little
wheat flour, milk and eggs, they are called slapjacks, to be eaten
with molasses and butter. But in common with Child, what she
calls pancakes are fried in lard, not baked on a griddle.
Eliza Leslie must take the prize for the most original and
arresting American variant. In her Directions for Cookery ()
a recipe for the mysteriously titled Sweetmeat Pancakes
appears:
1
Comfort Food
cake mixes: after adding eggs to the dry ingredients, the cook
is left with the impression of having actually made some-
thing. With pancakes, it is cooking them from a batter that
seems to constitute an authentic culinary accomplishment.
What is more perplexing is why the Aunt Jemima icon is
still used to sell pancakes. Clearly in the early twentieth cen-
tury she was a character meant to evoke the idyllic Old
South, where the black woman was portrayed as happy to
serve as a slave to the white family and to comfort them in
any number of ways, including going through the labour of
making pancakes so that mother did not have to. The fact
that she was plump and jolly also assuaged any guilt over the
real horrors of slavery. The Slave in a Box, as M. M. Manring
has called Aunt Jemima in a book of the same name, does
precisely the same thing. She (i.e. the company) does all the
work so you can enjoy your leisure and comfort. The box of
pancake mix serves the same function as the black slave.
In the twentieth century this product and many others
were marketed as convenience foods. Somehow consumers
were convinced that the effort of mixing flour, eggs and milk
was excessive and that it saved time if you could just pour a
dry mix into a bowl. The combination of comfort and con-
venience reached perhaps the pinnacle of folly in an inven-
tion designed to make pancakes automatically at home. On
April Time magazine featured an automatic pancake
baker designed by the Polarad Electronics Corporation on
which a hopper at the top holds the batter, releases enough
for one pancake at a time to an electronically heated griddle.
The machine then flips it and the finished pancakes thus
drop onto a platter continuously. The inventor hoped this
would relieve his harried wife from the ongoing effort of
plying their voracious hoard of children with pancakes.
We must wonder how such a simple food could retain
the association with comfort, despite all these modern con-
veniences. The answer must be that pancakes are one of the
first foods given to children after they are weaned from pap
and mush and thus are indelibly associated with childhood
and pleasant memories. Not surprisingly they also feature
prominently in childrens books. Among all the foods men-
tioned by childrens authors, none is more pervasive than
pancakes green eggs and ham notwithstanding. There is a
very good reason for this: pancakes are among the simplest,
tastiest and most approachable of foods that can be intro-
duced at a young age, hence the deep nostalgia among
grown-ups and reveries of happy pancake-filled youth. The
pancake is the comfort food that no vegetable or breakfast
cereal could ever hope to be. A true comfort food must be
Natalie Wood whips up a pancake breakfast, .
comes in the form of rice for most Asians, bread or pasta for
Italians. The same holds for the staple of Ethiopia, a behe-
moth pancake called injera. Certainly the prize for the largest
and most versatile pancake on earth must go to this dish. It
can measure a full feet ( cm) across and there is good rea-
son for this it serves as the base onto which an entire meal
is heaped in neat little piles. The typical and not a little opu-
lent Ethiopian meal normally consists of a wat, or stew of
chicken or goat, plus various purees of lentils and vegetables,
all highly seasoned and extraordinarily spicy. The injera can
also be served rolled up for each diner to tear bits off to use
as a utensil to scoop morsels from the communal platter.
When the meal is done the injera platter itself is eaten too.
Injera has a delightfully sour flavour and indescribably delight-
ful spongy texture; one might almost describe it as elastic.
Injera is comforting to Ethiopians precisely because it
is the staple, eaten at almost every meal. The best variety is
made from teff, a grain that grows here and practically
nowhere else. Botanically speaking, teff is Eragrostis tef, a
A simple illustra-
tion of the domes-
tic division of
labour in colonial
Abyssinia
women making
injera, and men
consuming them.
The huge towel-like injera is cooked on a hot flat griddle on one side while
covered with a basket lid.
Making injera takes a deft hand. They are a staple in Ethiopian cuisine.
The South Indian dosa is rolled up with ingredients inside and served with
a dipping sauce.
the long queues of expats to be found waiting for the exqui-
site dosas served at the southern end of Washington Square
Park in Greenwich Village, quite possibly the only cart of its
kind in New York City, if not the . There are also a number
of Dosa Express restaurants in New Jersey, mostly serving
the burgeoning Indian community there.
2
Celebration
though it rarely does any more. They appear to originate
with the Danes, though a rather similar pancake called poffer-
tjes can be found in the Netherlands. In any case, what makes
these unique is the way they are cooked, in a cast-iron pan
with little round depressions, known as a munk pan. The
batter is poured into the lightly greased craters, where it
puffs up. Traditionally it is supposed to be turned over with
a knitting needle, though there are also little wooden two-
pronged forks especially designed to flip the little pancake
balls. The filling, if used, is pressed into the batter before
flipping. If unfilled, the pancakes are sprinkled with pow-
dered sugar and served with jam. The batter for these comes
in many different forms. In the Bisquick or Krusteaz mix
is sometimes used, and it works. But the more authentic
recipes are rather richer and include more eggs and butter-
milk. Sometimes the egg whites are beaten and folded in to
create a puffier pancake. Aebleskiver qualify both as a holiday
pancake and a comfort food they are reserved for a
specific holiday morning, use traditional equipment used for
no other recipes so the pans tend to become heirlooms, and
they are associated with childhood memories, cosy family
gatherings and departed relatives. As with all traditional
Christmas foods, people form strong attachments to a
particular recipe, which is handed down with care to each
generation. The holiday celebration in a sense comes to be
defined by the presence of aebleskiver. Without them the
holiday is somehow incomplete. Aebelskiver are a concrete
connection to the past, incorporated as an expression of
ethnic identity.
3
Street Food
by hand and grilled into a little cake. This is then split and
filled with cheese, meat or virtually anything. La reina pepiada
is the most traditional, made with ground meat, avocado and
cheese, but others contain pork, chicken or can even be
sweet with jam. Other varieties more closely approximate
pancakes, such as the arepa of Colombia, flatter and thinner,
and that of Costa Rica, poured from a batter and indisputably
a pancake. Mexican gorditas and El Salvadorean pupusas can
also be considered corn pancake cousins. All can be bought
in shops or stands (areperas, pupuserias) that effectively com-
pete with fast-food stands selling hamburgers, hot dogs and
the like. Apart from the variety of condiments now added
they are essentially the same as those made hundreds of
years ago by Native Americans, before they had any contact
with Europeans.
Moving across the Atlantic we come to Morocco, which
boasts a very fine street-food pancake called beghrir. These
are unique, being made with semolina flour and raised with
yeast. They are also enriched with milk, eggs and honey.
Being cooked only on one side, beghrir have a spongy surface
of big gaping holes not unlike injera, although the diameter
of the pancakes is much smaller. In French they are some-
times called crpes mille trous or crpes with a thousand
holes. When sold on the street they are usually arranged
overlapping in a circular decorative mound and are doused
with honey and butter which seeps into the holes. As well as
being a street food they are also one of the foods eaten dur-
ing Ramadan after sundown. Ramadan is the Muslim fast
during which nothing can be eaten until the evening, when
the fast is broken with the f tour, an evening feast.
Funkaso is a traditional pancake of West Africa, made
simply from millet flour and water. It is similar to the
Ethiopian injera, but smaller and easier to make. It is fer-
Beghrir, from
Northern Africa,
have holes on
top from being
cooked on one
side.
4
Working-class Food
Pancakes were a reminder of home for soldiers in World War .
cast-iron pan. The same holds true for field workers and
their midday meal, especially if they are working a good
distance from home.
There are significant regional variations in pancakes
among working types, not only in the ingredients, but also in
the preferred topping. In the South the traditional syrup on
pancakes is made of sweet sorghum, which was introduced
from Africa in the nineteenth century. In the North, maple
syrup prevails. There is a tradition that the tapping of maple
was learned from Native Americans. This may be true, but
the process of boiling it down into syrup was probably
invented by the colonists, as a substitute for the more famil-
iar golden syrup made from sugar, or treacle. Today both
these have been completely supplanted by maple, though
much of this is artificially flavoured with fenugreek or syn-
thetic flavourings and corn syrup.
One of the most cherished characters in American folk-
lore is the lumberjack, clad in red plaid flannel with boots and
braces (: suspenders), and notorious for his Bunyanesque
appetite. How lumberjacks came to be associated with stacks
of flapjacks, a sort of pancake, over all other foods is
unknown, but presumably this was one of the easy-to-make
and filling foods that could be prepared in great quantities in
short order by cooks in the lumber camps. It may also have
resulted from breakfast being an especially filling meal,
fuelling the body for the days hard labour to follow. When
one thinks of what lumberjacks eat, pancakes are naturally
included. And of course Paul Bunyan, the greatest of lumber-
jacks, employed a cook named Sour Dough Sam who
cooked the flapjacks on a griddle so big that it had to be
greased by men with bacon strapped to their feet, who would
skate across the metal surface. As the cooks name suggests,
flapjacks were often made with a sourdough starter, that is, a
bubbly wild yeast mother kept alive and continually replen-
ished with fresh flour and water after each batch. To prepare
batter for cooking, some of the starter is mixed with fresh
flour and water to form a sponge, in which the yeast grows,
usually overnight. The next day this is cooked for breakfast.
Like lumberjacks, trappers and mountain men would also
have come to depend on their sourdough starter, not usually
for bread as might be supposed given current sourdough
usage, but principally for those without ovens or those in the
hinterland, including farmers on the frontier. The advantage
of using wild yeast is that it can be stored in a loosely fitted
crock and will remain potent indefinitely if well maintained.
The word flapjack is itself interesting and of much ear-
lier origin than the Old West. Even Shakespeare uses it in
Pericles when a fisherman says, well have flesh for holidays,
fish for/fasting-days, and moreoer puddings and flap-jacks.
The term quite likely derives from the word flap to turn
over, or, as we say today, to flop or flip. As we have seen, it
was one of the terms used in early America, and perhaps the
common jack ending endeared it especially to lumberjacks.
Jack normally meant an ordinary bloke, a rough and merry
working-class fellow. Another term used in the late eight-
eenth century and thereafter was flannel cake, again perhaps
from association with the lumberjacks attire.
Miners have been associated with pancakes in the popu-
lar imagination and in real life, it seems. For example, Old
Pancake was the nickname for Henry Comstock, after whom
the fabulously rich silver mines around Virginia City, Nevada,
are named. Comstock was in fact a bit of a loudmouth and
scoundrel: he swindled his way into sharing the claim for the
discovery of these deposits, later sold it, and met an igno-
minious end when he committed suicide in Montana. In any
case, he is said to have got his nickname from the principle
article of his diet, namely pancakes. In the Yukon gold rush
of the s, miners were often called sourdoughs and
they are said to have slept with their starter to prevent it
from freezing.
Cowboys too have definite pancake affinities, as demon-
strated in the short story The Pimienta Pancakes by the
master of this genre, O. Henry. In it a smooth-talking, pistol-
wielding cowpuncher is outmanoeuvred in the affections of
a young lady by a dapper sheep rancher, who insists that his
interests are purely gastronomic: he seeks the perfect pan-
cake, which the young lady guards as a family secret. The
cowboy is sent to wrest the recipe, and the sheep rancher
promises to stay away. Little does the cowboy know, his rival
has forewarned the lady and her uncle that if the topic of
pancakes comes up, the cowpoke is delirious from a previ-
ous frying pan assault and must be calmed down. In the end
the ruse works: the sheep rancher marries the girl and the
cowboy is jibed for ever after about the pancake episode.
The working-class associations with pancakes can be
found throughout the world. For example, the most unique
of French crpes is of Gaelic origin the Breton galette, a
long-time staple of the impoverished farmer of north-west
France. In the Breton language it is called krampouz, a word
related to the Welsh crempog, which generally means a little
pancake, which indicates a very ancient common provenance.
In Brittany it is made with flour milled from buckwheat
(Fagopyrum esculentum, actually not a grain at all but a distant
relative of rhubarb). Buckwheat became the staple in this part
of France because wheat is harder to grow in the poor wet
soils. It was probably introduced in the fifteenth century by
the Dutch, despite the name sarrasin which suggests that it
was brought by the Saracens or Moors. Since rural Brittany
throughout the early modern period was relatively impover-
ished, buckwheat in gruel and galettes became one of the
primary sources of calories for the working classes.
Unlike an ordinary crpe, the galette is somewhat salty,
cooked only on one side and filled with savoury ingredients
such as Gruyre, ham and eggs (complte), or creamed mush-
rooms and chicken. There is even a galette with sardines. The
galette can be wrapped around a simple sausage, making it
portable and common at festivals. The savoury types are usu-
ally eaten seated in a little galette shop and, interestingly, their
edges are often folded into a square rather than being rolled.
Ideally they should be served with a ceramic mug of cold
cider. Traditionally they were also dipped into lait ribot (butter-
milk). Long ago they would have been made on a round iron
griddle with three legs set over the fire a pillig in Breton, or
galatoire. Today there are electric versions. A little implement,
basically a stick with a short cross bar on the end, called a
Paper-thin
crpes are made
by raking the
batter across
the griddle
with a rozelle.
A woman displays the correct procedure for making crpes in turn of the
century France.
5
Fine Dining
Afterword
Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake;
Toss the pancake,
Catch it if you can.
Pancake preparation.
Recipes
Ingredients
cups/ g flour
teaspoon baking powder
egg
shot of bourbon
capful vanilla essence
milk (enough to make a fairly stiff batter)
cup/ g pecan nuts
cup/ g sugar
pinch each of cinnamon, nutmeg and salt
small tart apple
a pat of butter for frying
sorghum syrup to top
Ingredients
cups/ g okonomiyaki flour mix (available from
any Japanese grocery)
water
napa cabbage, finely shredded
bean sprouts
snow peas
any leftover vegetables
vegetable oil for frying
bonito shavings
dried seaweed flakes
okonomiyaki sauce (available from any Japanese grocery)
Japanese mayonnaise
Make a batter with the okonomiyaki mix (regular wheat flour will not
work since it does not contain Japanese yam flour or dashi season-
ings) and water. Add all the vegetables and fry in one huge honking
pancake. It will take two spatulas to turn it over. When cooked,
which will take some time, put it on a plate and sprinkle with the
bonito shavings and dried seaweed flakes. I prefer furikake with
sesame seeds and dried bits of egg, but any kind will work. Then
garnish garishly with okonomiyaki sauce (a sort of brown sweet bar-
becue sauce) and the mayonnaise which must be squeezed from
an obscene little Kewpie doll-shaped bottle. Tuck in with friends.
Okonomi-tonnato
Ingredients
cups/ g okonomiyaki flour
water
small can tuna in oil, drained
tablespoons capers
a red pepper, finely diced
pinch of smoked Spanish paprika (Pimentn de la Vera)
vegetable oil or butter for frying
Chilli-corn Pancakes
Ingredients
cups/ g stoneground white cornmeal
tablespoons melted butter
tablespoon baking powder
milk (enough to make a very firm batter)
ancho chilli (canned and drained, or dried and
soaked), finely chopped
cup/ g cooked black beans
Ingredients
cups/ g wholewheat flour
egg
teaspoon baking soda
shot of framboise eau de vie
teaspoon demerara sugar
milk (enough to make a smooth loose batter)
butter for frying
any combination of blueberries, blackberries,
raspberries, currants etc.
Ingredients
pieces of matzoh, broken up into small pieces
eggs
salt
sugar to taste
cinnamon to taste
butter for frying
Soak the matzoh in water for about minutes. Then squeeze out
the water and add the eggs, salt to taste, sugar and cinnamon. Fry
by the ladleful in butter, being sure to flatten the mixture so they
are in fact pancakes. Turn over when browned. Serve sprinkled
with more sugar and cinnamon. Heretics such as myself will add
such unorthodox ingredients as turkey, capers, mustard and
cheese and then go so far as to scramble them in the pan de-
pancaking them as an act of defiance. These, for me at least, are
cause to celebrate.
Ingredients
eggs
tablespoons sugar
grated rind of lemon
cups/ ml buttermilk
teaspoon baking soda
teaspoon baking powder
teaspoon salt
cups/ g flour
butter
peeled, sliced apple
Beat eggs well, add sugar, lemon rind and buttermilk. Sift baking
soda, baking powder, salt together with flour. Stir into buttermilk.
Mix until moistened but do not beat. Heat a teaspoon of butter in
each depression of the ebelskiver pan. When sizzling, fill hole half
full of batter. When edges of batter begin to brown and the ball
becomes cooked, put a small slice of apple on top and then turn the
ball with a fork or chopstick to cook the other side.
(These can also be made with buckwheat flour, which yields
extraordinary results.)
La Socca (adapted from a Nioise postcard)
Ingredients
pint / ml water
tablespoons olive oil
cups/ g chickpea flour
salt and pepper
Put water and olive oil into a bowl, add the chickpea flour and
whisk well to avoid lumps forming. Season with salt and pepper
and strain through a sieve before spreading a thin layer (-inch
thick) on a greased baking tray. Bake on a pre-heated barbecue
grill on high heat with the lid closed. Or use a wood-fired oven.
Season with freshly ground black pepper and serve immediately,
cut up and eaten with the fingers.
Ingredients
cups/ g cornmeal
cup/ g fresh corn cut from the cob
green and red pepper, finely diced
jalapeo, seeded and chopped
pinch of baking soda
salt
a little milk for moistening
butter for frying
slice of cheese, either queso blanco,
mild white cheese or mozzarella
Combine the cornmeal with the fresh corn. Add to this the pep-
pers and jalapeo. Add a smidgen of baking soda, some salt and
moisten with milk until a fairly think batter forms. Pour the bat-
ter into a hot frying pan and cook in the butter. Flip over and
cover with a slice of cheese. Fold the cachapa in half and serve,
with tomato salsa on the side.
Breton Galettes
Ingredients
cups/ g buckwheat flour
eggs
pinch of salt
tablespoons melted butter
Crpes Poseidon
Ingredients
cup/ g flour
cup/ ml milk
cup/ ml water
eggs
tablespoons melted butter
pinch of salt
shallot, minced
butter for frying
cup/ g shelled shrimp
cup/ g crabmeat
cup or handful scallops
pinch of tarragon
a few saffron threads
cup/ ml dry white wine
cup/ ml heavy cream
Mix the flour with the milk, water, eggs, butter and salt. Let the
mixture rest for at least an hour in the refrigerator, adding more
water if necessary to make a thin batter. Heat a shallow crpe pan
or frying pan, add a little butter and ladle in some batter, swirling
it around to cover the pan and pouring the excess back into the
mixing bowl. Flip and cook the other side a few seconds. Stack
the crpes as they are made and cover to keep warm. When done,
gently cook the shallot in a tablespoon of butter without brown-
ing. Next add the shelled shrimp, crabmeat, scallops, tarragon
and saffron. Cook gently for a minute or so, then add the dry
white wine and cream, and reduce on high heat for a minute, let-
ting the shellfish cook through. Fill the crpes with the seafood
and garnish with some seaweed, and a trident.
Palacsinta
Ingredients
eggs
cups/ g flour
cups/ ml milk
tablespoon sugar
pinch of salt
cups / ml soda water
butter for frying
cups / g ground walnuts
a little honey
apricot jam
sweetened whipped cream for decoration
Latkes
Ingredients
potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
onion
egg
pinch of salt
matzoh meal (enough to make a thick batter)
oil
Put into a blender the potatoes, onion, egg and a pinch of salt.
Blend until smooth. Place the mixture in a strainer and let the
liquid drain off for a few minutes. Discard the liquid. Put the
remaining mixture in a bowl and add matzoh meal, about half the
volume of the potato mixture, until a thick batter forms. Drop
this by spoonfuls into hot oil in a deep frying pan and fry on both
sides until golden brown. Sprinkle with salt. Serve immediately, or
sooner, with some sour cream and apple sauce.
Blini
Ingredients
cups/ g buckwheat flour
tablespoon baking powder
eggs
milk (enough to make a thick pancake batter)
butter for frying
sour cream to taste
osetra caviar (the best you can afford)
Mix together the flour, baking powder, eggs and milk. Pour into a
hot buttered frying pan or griddle to make small bite-size pan-
cakes. Add a dollop of sour cream to each and top with the caviar.
Serve with ice cold vodka, and make a toast to Tsar Nicholas.
Crpes Suzette
Ingredients
cups/g flour, sifted
cups/ g icing (powdered) sugar
pinch of fine salt
eggs
. litres milk
tbsp curaao
juice and zest of one mandarin orange
tbsp/g butter
cup/g sugar
Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Beat together the eggs and
mix into the flour mixture, adding the milk little by little until you
have a batter.
Perfume with a tablespoon of curacao and one of mandarin
juice. Make the crpes very thinly. Spread the butter and sugar on
them. Add, working into the mixture with a spatula, the rest of
the mandarin juice, together with its zest, and the second spoon-
ful of curaao. Once the mixture has covered all the crpes, fold
them into quarters and serve them flambed.
Select Bibliography
Websites and Associations
Shrove Tuesday
www.pancakeparlour.com/Annual_Events/Shrove/
shrove.html
Crepes
whatscookingamerica.net/History/CrepesSuzetteHistory.htm
Aunt Jemima
www.auntjemima.com/
Pancake History
Clabber Girl
www.clabbergirl.com/familyfun-Pancakes.php
Food Site
www.foodsiteoftheday.com/pancakes.htm
The Pancake: An Appreciation
www.restaurantbiz.com/index.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=&Itemid=
Pancake Houses
International House of Pancakes
www.ihop.com/
Pancake Recipes
Epicurian.com
pancake-recipes.epicurean.com/asc_results.jsp?
title=Pancake
Epicurious.com
www.epicurious.com/tools/searchresults?search=pancakes
Pancake Recipes.com
www.pancakes-recipes.com/
Suite
www.suite.com/reference/pancakes
Pancake Art
Web Gallery of Art (Search term: pancake)
www.wga.hu/index.html
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Society/Everett Collection/Rex Features: pp. , ; photo
Lisa F. Young/ iStock International Inc.: p. .
For pp. , , , , , , , , , , , , :
Nancy Ellen Jones: Photography and Food Styling
Chris Martin: Key Grip and Styling Assistant
Ken Albala: Food Preparation
Ken and Joanna Albala: Pottery
Shot on location in Stockton, California
Index
cake flour Poseidon
cannoli Suzette , ,
Carme, Antonin crespelle
Catholicon Anglicum (dictionary) Crespes a la Guise de
Tournay
caviar cruchpeta
chache-creup crumpets
Chandeleur , Curious George
Charpentier, Henri
cheese , dadar gulung
chestnuts Dekker, Thomas
chestnut flour Denmark
chialades Dennys
chickpea pancakes , , Disneyland
see also socca Doraemon
Child, Lydia Marie dorayaki , ;
children , dosa , ,
childrens books Dostoevsky, Fyodor
Chilli-corn Pancakes dhosa, see dosa
Chinese pancake (po-ping) drop scones
chives dumplings
chocolate chips Dutch, see Netherlands
Christmas , Dutch Baby
Colombia
coloured pancakes , , , ebelskivers, see aebleskivers
Edward
Columbian Exposition egghoppers
Comstock, Henry Egypt
corn (maize) , , , , , El Salvador
Ellis, William
corn bread Entwicklung des Waffelnkopf
cornmeal , Escoffier, Auguste
pone Ethiopia ,
Costa Rica Eton
cowboys
crpes , , , , , farinata
, , farls
fats , , , hoe cake , ,
Fisher, Abby Hopkins, Samuel
flannel cake , Hungary ,
flaeskpannkaka
flapjacks , , , If You Give a Pig a Pancake
flensje Imitation of Life
flip India ,
Francatelli, Charles Elm Indonesia
fritters , , injera , , , ,
funerals International House of
funnel cakes , , , Pancakes () ,
funkaso Italy