The History of Pancakes:
Did you know that the first pancakes were eaten by ancient peoples? They weren't exactly like the pancakes we eat today. These simple, fried concoctions of milk, flour, eggs and spices were called "Alita Dolcia" (Latin for "another sweet") by the ancient Romans. Depending upon the proportion of ingredients and method of cooking, the finished product might have approximated pancakes, fritters, omlettes, or custard. Some of these dishes were sweet (with fruit, nuts, honey); others were savory (with vegetables, cheese, fish, meat).
These ancient recipes are also thought to be the relatives of waffles, cakes, muffins, fritters, spoonbread and doughnuts. Pancakes, as we North Americans know them today, were "invented" in Medieval Europe.
Throughout history, pancake ingredients (finest available wheat flour, buckwheat, cornmeal, potatoes), cooking implements (ancient bakestones, medieval hearths, pioneer griddles perched on campfire embers, microwave ovens), social rituals (Shrove Tuesday crepes, Chanukah latkes, mass quantities for community fundraisers) and final product (thick or thin, savory or sweet, slathered with butter and smothered with syrup, or gently rolled around delicate fruit) have reflected regional cuisine and local customs.
Cake-like galettes [France], thick potato pancakes [Germany], Boxty [Ireland], paper thin crepes [France], palascinta [Hungary] drop scones [Scotland], coarse cornmeal Indian cakes [colonial America], flapjacks [19th century America], rich blini [Russia], poori [India], qata'if (Middle East) dadar gutung [Indonesia], bao bing [China] and simply-add-water instant mixes [late 20th century] are all members of the pancake family.
The connection between pancakes and Shrove Tuesday (the day before the Christian season of Lent begins) is rooted in the need to deplete stores of eggs and fat...both forbidden by the Catholic Church for consumption during Lent. The practice began in Medieval times and continues today (in some places) in the form of Pancake day. There are many customs connected with this day. The Olney pancake race is said to be one of the oldest.
"The griddle method of cooking is older than oven baking, and pancakes are an ancient form. The first pancakes clearly distinguishable from plain griddle breads are sweet ones mentioned by Apicius; these were made from a batter of egg, mixed milk and water, and a little flour, fried and served with pepper and honey. An English culinary manuscript of about 1430 refers to pancakes in a way which implies that the term was already familiar, but it does not occur often in the early printed cookery books...Throughout Europe pancakes had a place among Easter foods, especially on Shrove Tuesday (or Mardi Gras), the last day before Lent. Customs varied from country to country...One peculiarly English institution is the pancake race. The oldest of these has been held at Olney in Buckinghamshire, in most years since 1445..."
(Source: ---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson
[Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 571)
"Pancakes are traditionally served on Candlemas and Shrove Tuesday, to celebrate renewal, family life, and hopes for good fortune and happiness in the future. It is customary in France to touch the handle of the frying pan, and make a wish while the pancake is turned, holding a coin in the hand. In French rural society, crepes were also considered to be a symbol of allegiance: farmers offered them to their landowner...."
(Source: ---Larousse Gastronomique, Jenifer Harvey Lang,
New American Edition [Crown Publishers:New York]1989 (p. 332)
"Pancakes, which were so popular in all classes, could be made with the simplest kind of equipment. A skillet and a grill over a heap of small coals or wood were alll that was needed. For the hurried professional cook, pancakes were a boon. They were easily an quickly prepared. They were also useful to intersperse with the fish and egg dishes for fast- or fish-day meals, as well as to fill menus on meat days. One of the advantages of such batters, then and now, is that they can be mixed up ahad of time."
(Source: ---Dining With William Shakespeare,
Madge Lorwin [Atheneum:New York] 1976 (p. 141)
According to the Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare by Marvin Spevack, William Shakespeare mentions pancakes four times in two plays. Both plays were comedies and both characters referencing this food were clowns. Interesting, yes?
All's Well that Ends Well:
"As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for you taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cockold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin." [2.02 23]
As You Like It:
"Of a certain knight, that swore by his honor they were good pancakes, and wore by his honor the mustard was naught. Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn." [1.02 64-7]
In Sweden, pancakes are traditional Thursday winter's night dessert, following pea soup. This hearty combination has been enjoyed since the Middle Ages:
"Swedish pea soup is regarded as a real national dish. It has been served every Thursday in most Swedish homes for hundreds of years. During the cold winter it makes a very satisfying meal, economical as well as filling. The soup is served as a main course with boiled pork, The traditional dessert after pea soup is Swedish Pancakes or "Plattar", served with jam or lingonberrries...It makes very good eating, although it is a bit on the heavy side for modern poeple...The exact cooking time of the peas is hard to say, some peas take longer than others. There is no harm in overcooking, so you can easily cook soup ahead of time."
(Source: ---Swedish Cooking at its Best,
Marianne Gronwall van der Tuuk [Rand McNally:Chicago] 1962 (p. 62)
In the United States, pancakes are commonly served for breakfast:
"Pancakes have long been a staple of the American breakfast table, and their history is as old as that of the Native Americans who shaped a soft batter in their hands and called it, in the Narragansett, nokehick (it is soft), transmuted by early white settlers into " no cake." Cornmeal pancakes were called "Indian cakes" as early as 1607. The Dutch in America made similar cakes from buckwheat, panekoeken, which by 1740 were called "buckwheat cakes." English settlers brought with them the feast of Pancake Tuesday, an old name for Shrove Tuesday, the day before the Lenten fast begins...By 1745 Americans were also referring to hoe cakes," perhaps because they were cooked on a flat hoe blade...One of the most beloved versions of this simple cake is the Johnnycake [also known as journey cake], specifically associated with Rhode Island...The word "pancake" itself was not in general usage until the 1870s..."
(Source: ---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink,
John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 229-30)
(This is only a small portion of the information on pancakes found in this book. Ask your librarian to help you find this book for additional facts and trivia. Historic recipes for hoe cakes).
What is a flapjack?
Flapjacks are one (of several) American names for pancake-type foods. Food historians generally agree the term belongs to the New England states.
"The term flapjack has had a variety of designations in the course of its career. Originally it denoted at sort of thick pancake ('a Flapjack, which in our translation is called a Pancake,' John Taylor, Jack-a-Lent, 1620), and that is how it is still used in the USA. Flap in this context means 'toss'. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a flapjack used also be be a sort of apple tart or apple turnover (called applejack in dialects of eastern England). And in the 1930s we see the first evidence of the word's present-day British usage, for a biscuit made from rolled oats, syrup, and butter."
(Source: ---An A to Z of Food and Drink,
John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 126-7)
"By the nineteenth century northerners were referring to "flapjacks" and "griddle cakes," which by the 1830s and 1840s were being made with white flour rather than cornmeal."
(Source: ---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink,
John F. Marinani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 229)
"Indian flapjack...(2) 1835 P. Shirreff Tour 221 Into one of those pans some small loaves were placed...and in the other, batter-cakes, called flapjacks, were prepared."
(Source: ---A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles,
Mitford M. Mathews, editor [University of Chicago Press:Chicago] 1951(p. 625)
"Flapjack. 1. A pancake. Also called clapjack,flapcake, flapover, flatcake, flatcjack, flipjack, flipper, flopjack, flopover, slapjack. 1789 Thomas' MA Spy or Worcester Gaz. (MA) 1 Mar, Danties [sic] of all sorts, too, are here...Pies, custards, cranb'ry tarts, adn flapjacks.///2. A kind of fried bread or biscuit...3. A fruit turnover"
(Source: ---Dictionary of American Regional English,
Frederic G. Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall, Volume II D-H
[Belknap Pres of Harvard Univeristy Press:Cambridge MA] 1991 (p. 462)
About crepes:
Like pancakes, crepes trace their roots back to ancient Roman times. In Medieval France they were connected with Candlemas and Shrove Tuesday, as symbols of good fortune and family life.
"Crepe, a pancake, made by cooking a thin batter sparingly in a very thin layer in a frying or special crepe pan. The word comes from the Latin "crispus," meaning curly or wavy...Pancakes [and crepes] are traditionally served on Candlemas and Shrove Tuesday, to celebrate renewal, family life and hopes for good fortune and happiness in the future. It is customary in France to touch the handle of the frying pan and make a wish while the pancake is turned, holding a coin in the hand. In French rural society, crepes were also considered to be a symbol of allegiance: farmers offered them to their landowner...In western France, particularly in Brittany, crepes are prepared throughout the year and served with salted butter...Crepes...were extolled by Anatole France in Le Temps...In traditional cookery, crepes are served as a hot hors d'oeuvre, filled with a fairly thick mixture of veloute sauce with mushroooms, ham, Gruyere cheese or seafood. They may also be cut into find strips and used to garnish soup. Most often, however, crepes are prepared as sweet dishes."
(Source: ---Larousse Gastronomique,
Completely Revised and Updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 367)
"Crepes seem to be a French specialty. Neither the crispa and crispelli found respectively in Latin and Italian texts nor the "cryspes" in English sources are really similar to what we think of a crepes: a mixture of flour, eggs, and liquid (milk or cream nowadays; water and wine in the Middle Ages) made into thik pancakes in a shallow pan. There is indeed every reason to think that this preparation is specific to France, where it was already being prepared in the pan known as a galettiere, judging by the description in Le Menagier de Paris of a low-rimmed skipped with perpendicular, not flared sides ("as broad at the top as at the base"), which is the shape of a galettiere. On the other hand, crispa and crispelli were made of a leavened dough and were deep fried. While "cryspes" were indeed cooked in the same was as crepes, they were made of only flour and egg whites."
(Source: ---The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy,
Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban, & Silvano Serventi,
translated by Edward Schneider [University of Chicago:Chicago] 1998 (p. 206-7)
This book translates the Medieval French crepe recipe found in Le Menagier de Paris:
Crepes: Take some four, and moisten it with eggs, as many yolks as whites, with the filaments removed, and mix with water and add salt and wine, and beat everything together for a long time; then put some lard on the fire in a little iron pan, or half lard and half fresh butter, and let it bubble; and then take a bowl pierced with a hold as wide as your little finger, and then put the batter in a dish; beginning with the center, let it flow all over the pan; then put it in a plate with powdered sugar on tip. And that iron or bronze pan should hold three chopines, and have a rim half a finger's-breadth high and should be as broad at the top as at the base, neither more nor less; there is a good reason for this." (p. 229)
"Crepes Suzette, sweet pancakes rolled or folded with an orange sauce and flambeed with curacao or the like. Ayto...dismisses the story that a French chef Chartenier, invented the dish (by accident, in some versions) at Monte Carlo in 1896 for the then Prince of Wales, "Suzette" being of the Prince's company at the time. He finds the earliest reference in print is Escoffier [1903]; and righly comments that the dish was for the first two-thirds of the 20th century the epitome of luxury desserts, but is now less often encountered."
(Source: ---Oxford Companion to Food,
Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 571)
Why crepes are folded in different ways? Interesting question. We are not finding any official explanation that connects the practice to a particular region or (social, religious) custom. Our French cookbooks and several Web sites suggest the method of folding is determined by how the cook envisions the final product. Traditionally, filled crepes are rolled or stacked; plain or topped crepes are folded in quarters (fan shape).
Special thanks:
Sincere apprciation to Lynne Olver of the "Food Timeline" for assistance in putting together this history of pancakes. http://www.foodtimeline.org