Professor Butter Beard and “A Dutch Kitchen Scene”
“Everyone runs around trying to find a place where they still serve breakfast because eating breakfast, even if it's 5 o'clock in the afternoon, is a sign that the day has just begun and good things can still happen. Having lunch is like throwing in the towel.”
― Jonathan Goldstein, “Lenny Bruce is Dead”
I grew up on Eggo waffles. Well, on Saturdays anyway. The rest of the week was peanut butter toast and Cap’n Crunch cereal. But on Saturday, cartoons would begin at 7am and I would wait to hear the “pop” of the toaster to leave the Road Runner in his smoke and climb up on one of the kitchen stools so I could dive into toasted blueberry Eggos swimming in butter and syrup. I would ride the sugar rush through Bugs Bunny, Yogi Bear, the Jetsons, Scooby Doo and Johnny Quest and finally crash asleep in my rocking chair until I was whisked away on family errands. Ah, a boy’s life.
According to food historians, the Greeks ate a frugal breakfast, based on bread dipped in wine, together with cheese or fruit. In ancient Rome, the “jentaculum” was usually taken between eight and nine in the morning and consisted of a drink of milk and a biscuit dipped in wine or garlic sauce, plus figs or olives. Sometimes just cheese and eggs were the primary ingredients. It is thought that the habit of taking breakfast was abandoned by the Christians (why?), but the medieval scripture translator Isidore of Seville references “the first repast of the day, the one that breaks the nightly fast.”
But I must thank the Dutch. In the 1500s, thin "wafer biscuits,” or "Gaufres Cigarettes,” were baked in large wafer irons and eaten flat or rolled. A thin flavored batter was poured into hot wafer irons then heated over coals on a hearth or inserted into wood-fired ovens or braziers. The resulting hot wafer was rolled around a rolling pin or knife to shape a cone which could then be filled with whipped cream. The beginnings of the waffle’s family tree!
Joachim Beuckelaer painted that very process in his “A Dutch Kitchen Scene.” Two clearly hungry men and an older woman are seated round a younger woman who is intent on baking waffles (wafer biscuits) using a large scissor-shaped waffle iron. The older man, dressed in a snappy green jerkin and red tunic, bends over the young woman's shoulder as she is reaching to ladle batter from a gorgeous ceramic pot into the sizzling hot iron. The older woman in the background is spinning with a distaff and raising a beer tankard, all while apparently checking out the intentions of the man leaning over the young woman. Our second man, also wearing a brilliant red tunic, stares into the distance, obviously in dire need of a morning sugar rush.
Beuckelaer was a 16th century Flemish painter specializing in market and kitchen scenes with elaborate displays of food and household equipment. In his compositions, Beuckelaer would paint a kitchen stocked with numerous ingredients for a lavish meal: vegetables, fruits, nuts, poultry and large cuts of fish and meat. Period table linen and crockery would also be in view. Typically, in the background, Beuckelaer would depict a biblical story such as Christ at Emmaus or in the house of Martha and Mary. Today, his paintings are regarded as the forerunners of the still-lifes of the 17th century, in which the narrative elements vanished entirely.
In the 18th century, recipes for waffles, or “wafers,” began to be circulated within “cooking books” such as this one appearing in John Nott’s “The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary” published in 1724:
“Mingle Flour with Cream the over Night; temper them well, make it free from Lumps, put to it more Loaf-Sugar than you did Flour, and mix it well with a Spoon. Then pour in more Cream, and some Orange-flower-water, till you have made it almost as thin as Milk; and stir all well together. Having your Wafer-Iron ready heated, and rubb'd on both Sides from time to time with fresh Butter, put into the corner of a Napkin; turn your Batter upon the Iron, not exceeding a Spoonful and a half for every Wafer. Lay the Wafer-Iron on the Furnace, so that when the Wafer is bak'd on one Side, it may be turn'd upon the other. Open your Iron a little, and observe, if it be come to a good Colour, it is enough.”
We’ve come a long way, baby. Or have we? My Saturday morning waffles now contain a mix of wheat and nut flours, whipped egg whites, glistening toasted pecans and warming ginger. But they still swim in a pool of butter and maple syrup. And they still seem to taste better in front of the TV while watching the Road Runner “beep beep” or Elmer Fudd hunting “wabbits.” Go ahead and treat yourself. It’s Saturday!
Toasted Pecan Waffles
Three or Four Belgian Style Waffles
1 cup pecan halves – toasted and cooled
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp nut flour (almond or hazelnut, and I prefer Bob’s Red Mill)
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
½ tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 cup warm water
3 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla paste
12 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1) Toast the pecans in a non-stick skillet until aromatic, shiny and starting to brown. Pour them off onto a cutting board, cool slightly and then coarsely chop them. Set aside.
2) Melt (brown) the butter in the same skillet and let slightly cool. Yes, I know this is a lot of butter! But how often do you make and enjoy waffles? Do it and enjoy!
3) Preheat your oven to 200 degrees to keep the waffles warm before serving.
4) Preheat your waffle iron. I use a Belgian-Style Deep Waffle Maker.
5) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, salt and ginger.
6) Separate the eggs – the yolks in one medium bowl and the whites in another.
7) Whisk the warm water and vanilla with the egg yolks. Set aside.
8) Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks. Set aside.
9) Whisk the water mixture into the dry mixture until no lumps remain. Whisk in the melted butter.
10) Fold in the chopped pecans and then the whipped egg whites to form your final batter.
11) Fill your waffle iron with batter (as described per your specific iron). I cook mine for 5-6 minutes and then keep them warm in the oven until ready to serve.
