Shrove Tuesday also means it’s Pancake Day. But a pancake can take many different forms – it could be a crêpe, drop scone or oatcake to name a few. So are you partial to a pancake, and what would be your pancake of choice?
I’m a fan of breakfast for dinner. It’s quick and easy, and can be sweet or savoury. It’s also probably the one meal that I can thank for sustaining me throughout uni, and I have great memories of late-night diner stops on cross-country road trips chowing down on an all-day breakfast.
So when there’s a day devoted to pancakes, I’m in.
The question I’ve been asked recently, though, is what kind will I be making?
Pancake traditions
Instinctively my mind’s eye flashes to a sky-high stack of fluffy flapjacks – yes flapjacks, and I don’t mean the oat-based golden syrup cakes 🙂
My first experience of pancakes in the UK was quite surprising when I ordered a ‘stack of flapjacks’ they looked quite different to what I’d expected.
But posed with the question, I’m tempted by personal favorites other than a hotcake. The German potato pancakes smothered with applesauce, and lefse slathered with butter and sugar graced my childhood, thanks to my heritage.
My grandma always made the point to us that a crêpe is a crêpe, and a pancake is a pancake, period (and not to forget the accent). Childhood friends introduced me to latkes, blinis and ebelskivers.
Life abroad brought okonomiyaki into my life. And a recent culinary exploration has led me to variations on the classics, like stuffed pancakes (of the fluffy variety).
Recently, I’ve realised I’ve inadvertently been led to search far and wide for the perfect pancake. Although I’ve never gone so far as undertaking a pancake-eating challenge – like that at the infamous Seiad Valley Café in California where they serve up close to 9-pounds of pancake.
Pancake preferences
I know I’m woefully short of having tried every variation. But through all my sampling and batter preparing, I’m convinced that pancakes are a sort of cultural comfort staple and that the definition of what makes a pancake is delightfully fluid.
I have my skillet and spatula at the ready for Shrove Tuesday, but I’m curious if I’m the only one pondering what sort of pancake to create.
When you start flipping batter, will you go for family tradition or an untested recipe? What variations should we all be trying out?
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