History of Pancakes

 Nobody knows just how long people have been making and eating pancakes. But you could almost call the flat bread of primitive families of twelve thousand years ago a pancake. It was made by grinding grains and nuts and mixing them with water or milk. The mixture was then shaped into flattened cakes and baked on the hot stones surrounding the fire.

The making and eating of pancakes has always been much the same - a stimulating, exhilarating and happy time. Pancakes just seem to affect people that way! And so it’s not too surprising that two happy events, pancakes and festivals, are often linked together.

In France, the main ceremonial day for pancake eating is Candlemas on 2 February. During this festival, French children wear masks and demand pancakes and fritters. In various parts of the country, there are different customs.

In Provence, if you hold a coin in your left hand while you toss a pancake, you’ll be rich. And in Brie, the first pancake (which is never very good anyway) is always given to the hen that laid the eggs that made the pancake. It’s always regarded as bad luck to let a pancake fall on the floor while tossing it.

Legend has it that Napoleon, who liked to make and eat them with Josephine, blamed the failure of his Russian campaign on one he had dropped years before at Malmaison during Candlemas.

Large or small, fat or wafer thin and made with a wide range of flours, pancakes are given different names by different peoples. There are Hungarian palesinta, Chinese egg rolls, Jewish blintzes, Russian blini, Italian cannelloni, Swedish plattar, Mexican tortillas, American hotcakes, German pfannkucken, Norwegian lefser, Austrian nockerlin, Welsh crempog and Australian pikelets; but undoubtedly the most famous of them all is the great French crepe.

From Pancake and Crepe Cookery by Diana Daisey; published by Ure Smith, Sydney.