A History of Waffles - Communion Wafers to Eggo 

What is your favorite topping on a waffle? Lately I've been a banana with boysenberry syrup fan.

When my sister-in-law got married they did a waffle bar for the reception instead of the little cups of mints and nuts, and slices of cake everyone else was doing. We had like 8 waffle irons going and bottles of chocolate sauce, homemade caramel sauce, homemade syrups, ground nuts, chocolate chips, sprinkles, cans of whipped cream ... it was crazy!!! And EVERYONE loved it! There were guests arriving, walking the reception line, making their plate of waffles, sitting and talking while they ate, for hours! And everyone felt like family.

I knew the upload was coming, so I tried summoning Max by chanting "Hard tack" to myself.

I used to work for a small Franciscan University, and we found the old communion wafer iron that they used in the earliest days of the university. It was really cool.

I hosted my first proper adult dinner party at my own place yesterday. While doing the food prep I had tasting history playing - the 15ish minute videos made pretty reliable time gauges for one video per task. By the time the titanic sinks - the salad should be done, and by the time Napoleon has a tummy ache, by god the chicken better be in the oven. Thank you for the company ;)

I loved the use of the Bayeux Tapestry cloth to cover your batter at the beginning. It made me smile.

New life goal: throw a waffle frolic.

If more people cared about baking/cooking then this channel would be even more populated. Alas, the fast food industry and modern convenience has led to a departure from truly interesting and sound content. Keep on striving for excellence in learning food history.

I also love "Le Ménagier de Paris"! I get a kick out of thinking about how this busy (lawyer?) could have picked up all that household knowledge. My sister and refer to him as the Lady Catherine de Bourgh of medieval France.

"Waffle" and "wafer" come from the same root, and they're both related to "weave". Good old Germanic words. That Norwegian waffle iron reminds me of a krumkaker iron. Also makes a thin waffle, which is rolled around a cone to shape it as it cools. Then it gets filled. I've got a cast iron waffle iron from the 1920s. It has a handle shaped as a ring. The waffle maker itself is hinged and sits in a socket in the ring. It fits over a burner, and you lift the handle and turn the maker. There were other irons that had a sort of chimney that sat over a burner, and could be flipped without having to lift them.

The Norwegian iron would presumably be for making Goro (short for 'good advice'), which are slightly thicker than Krumkake (curved cake, literally). Both Goro and Krumkake are mainly considered Christmas cookies nowadays, don't know if that was always the case though.

Every year for Christmas, my grandmother now my mom hand rolls cookie dough made with a jigger of alcohol, heats up a heavy iron on the stove and makes Lukken Yzer cookies. They are thin but with the traditional waffle pattern.

Norwegian Vafler made in the heart shaped waffle iron! We ate them for lunch at school in Norway with a slice of Brunost on top! No pizza and tater tots for Norwegians! LOL Norwegian pancakes called Pannekaker, are more like crepes. Blew my mind when I first had them.

12:26 Womb of a fish is basically caviar (one step removed), so it could actually be very tasty

There is a ridiculous story in my old Betty Crocker book about a knight coming back from the crusades and sits upon some biscuits. Thanks for the facts, loving your recipes.

This must be good luck. My aunt (who passed away a couple of years ago) loved to have waffles for her birthday. Her birthday was only a couple of days ago. We had waffles in memory of her.

I cannot WAIT for the new cookbook with the recipes and histories!! I don’t know which is better, the recipes or the history! Kudos to you for all the research you do for us. Love ya, man!! ❤️❤️

I just finished cleaning up after trying this recipe. It works, but OMG the amount of fluid butter oil that cooks out of the waffles overflowed my waffle iron (electric). Next time, I will use about half the butter and see how it goes. The waffles themselves come out crisp like cookies and make great hand-snacks with the addition of maple syrup. [I didn't make the butter sauce in the video, as I didn't really want to try it. :P]. Thanks for your efforts, Max. We really enjoy watching your videos. :D UPDATE: I made these again, but altered the ingredients a bit..... 1/4 to 1/3 cup of butter instead of the full cup increased the cream by 1/2 cup to make up the liquid volume increased the sugar to 2 Tablespoons I still didn't have to grease the waffle iron and they turned out very well. I did overbake one, but it still tasted great. Thanks again for this interesting recipe! :)

Love this episode. Oh! My wife had ordered an Autographed copy of your book in December. I was given it as my Birthday present yesterday. What an amazing present. It is incredible. Thank for putting in the work and effort Max.

It's always a good idea to seek shelter from the evil gaze of the sun.

I don't know if that one painting was intentionally selected to tie in with the later waffle party innuendo , but saucy either way. Love your videos!

my grandma used to make finnish pancakes and the resepie had sooo much butter like 100G or 150. it was one liter patch, and like 5DL of sugar. its soooo good :D its just flour 1-2 eggs 100G butter, and 3-5dl of sugar, teaspoon of baking poweder. little bit of vanilia sugar or real vanilla. All of this is mixed in 1L of milk of if you are feeling fancy then use cream and thats it. its very heavy stuff its poured in the oven pan and baked in 200c till the middle till its nice and brown but still bit jiggly if you jiggle the pan. time vice its like 15-30 minutes. then its done you cut it in to squeared and serve

Ohh I still have a picture from the 80’s of me as a kid with a big Belgium waffle in Brussels. Miss them. Nothing like them. Beet sugar

We make pizzelles every Christmas, which requires a pizzelle iron. Even though we have 2 electric irons, one with 4 spots and one with 2 spots, it takes forever! I always think about how my ancestors had to use cast iron pizzelle irons! It would have been much more difficult! And would have taken all day! So glad I live in the modern world! 🤣

Truly enjoy your videos, I have been watching for years.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

Hey Max been watching your videos for a while now love them all.

one time i got stoned with friends and one of the friends' mom amade us grilled cheese sandwiches in her waffle iron. it was so good i cried. best waffle ive ever had

In an alternate universe, the Dutch-Wafer House has gained sentience.

Liked for the Donkey reference alone!

I had an old fashioned waffle iron that did a great job 👏 blueberry jam on top.😊

I NEED to know more about historic waffle turf wars.

Ahh, so eating waffles on feasting day was like people eating pie on pi day.

I heard that "Monty Python's Flying Circus" reference. Nicely done, and wise, too. If you hadn't done that then 99 guys, myself included, were going to have to.

Sounds almost like a Christmas Waffle of some kind lol

I remember a long time ago as a child my grandmother made a pancake with tuna and corn I remember not being so interested in it but when I ate it I loved it so maybe that type of thing isn't so much of a thing that should be left in the past I don't know you might want to check it out it's just your basic pancake mix with canned tuna and corn that was cooked practically to perfection in my point of view which actually came out pretty good considering I thought it was gross at first

Drenching a waffle in melted butter. 💗💗 Adding wine..... 🤔 Weeelll... maybe a very dry sherry with the alcohol cooked out.

This scratched that brunch itch I've been havin'

Max is an Honorary Brit so we can say that he’s waffling on. Literally.

So instead of the old standard exclamation of, "Jesus Christ on a cracker!" now it's "Christ with butter and syrup!"?

Legend has it that if you say Nutmeg 3 times in the mirror John Townsends will appear

the german name for communal wafers is actually "oblaten". that probaly comes from the first word for waffles (oblie) you mentioned:)

Thanks, Max.

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.

Amazing video! Used your link to sign up for Trade to give you at least a little bit of support

With the fish and cheese, seems like those were early turnovers/patties.

In the words of donkey made that intro a 10 out of 10

In poland we call this a gofr or many gofry

Speaking of historical waffles, did anyone find the ones that UK troops abandoned in the South Atlantic? I mean, there was a big headline about it in the '80s... 'BRITISH LEFT WAFFLES ON FALKLANDS'... ;-)

Still waiting for malt week!

Yogurt is a word whose spelling has settled pretty recently. I remember Yoghurt, Yogourt, etc.

¡Obleas! With dulce de leche 😙

It is really odd to me that the 'u' was added making oblie into oublie. Oublie means "forget" and is a bit of an aggressive word. It's the root for oubliette. Which means oblivion, forgotten.

Max dedicated his first book to Jose, is he going to dedicated his 2nd book to his mom?

@1:05 If they’re Right Dutch Wafers, what happened to the left ones?

Downyflake Blueberry Waffles were the Best !!! But they don't make them anymore☹

Wafel-frolic 😂

My first topics history and food😮❤

What was a waffle at the time? what were the waffle tongs used for?

I made this the other day but I substituted the waffle for lasagne

In Polish the name for waffles is still “gofry”

Waffles are just pancakes with sass.

stroopwaffle! Speculaas?

"waffle party" sounds like an internet shock site 😭

Max: “1 TSP of Grated Nutmeg.” Townsends: “I have been summoned!”

Oooooh boy I've been waiting for this one! As a Belgian, let me tell you we have not two but THREE types of waffles! We have the "gaufre de Bruxelles", the Brussels waffle, for which you fill the iron, and it's airy and light. Then we have the "gaufre de Liège", or Liège waffle (Liège being another Belgian city), for which the batter is usually a bit thicker and you don't fill the iron in order to get a rounder shape. We usually don't use sugar pearls in the Brussels waffle, but we do use if often in Liège waffles. You'd eat Brussels waffles with topping, my favorite is raspberry and redcurrant jam, and the Liège waffles bare since they already have the pearl sugar. But in the countryside in the south, we also make what we call galettes. It's similar to Liège waffles, but it's even thicker, and we use potatoes in the dough. Galette day was a whole ordeal at my grandparents' house, they'd make the dough in a big laundry basket -yes you read that right- the day before and would let it rest overnight, then on cooking day, my grandparents would be at it from 7am until the evening, using two waffle irons. Each had their role and they had a whole system. My grandma would grease the iron with a paintbrush, my grandpa would scoop in some dough, they'd close it, flip the iron, and take care of the other machine. By the end of the day, there would be stacks of waffles all over the kitchen. They made two types of galettes, most of them were made with sugar pearls like the Liège waffles, but a few very precious ones would be made with bacon. You read that right, bacon waffles! My grandma would put a strip down on the iron before adding the dough. Some even more rare were the double bacon ones, a strip both under and on top of the dough before closing the iron. The reason they were so rare is that they were more difficult and annoying to make than the sugar pearls ones. They were made only for my mom and it was the greatest of honors when she gave one or two to someone else, because there weren't many to begin with and she didn't like to share those. I only know one person outside of the family who ever got one of her bacon waffles. My grandparents would start with the bacon waffles to pre-grease the irons, then they would mix in the sugar pearls in the dough to get started on the sugar ones. They don't make them as often now because they're really old, but it's still very special when we get to have a galette fresh off the iron.

My grandmother-in-law was from an entirely different culture, so when we visited, she'd make pizzelles. I'd never had them before, and LOVED them. So the next Christmas, I asked if she'd bake me a batch of pizzelles and ship them to me. Nope! She bought a pizzelle baker, included her recipe, and told me "learn to make them yourself." I did! And I still make several batches around the holidays for neighbors and workers (police, mail persons, trash collectors, etc).

That delivery of, "I'm making waffles!" is one of my favorite line readings of all time.

Wine on waffles? Why has nobody informed me of this before! I've got flour, eggs, a waffle iron... Vodka. Close enough.

Fun fact, in Dutch we still use the same word for flower and flour (bloem).

I actually found a cast iron waffle iron in my grandparents' attic last summer. Completely covered in rust, but once I got it cleaned it made some really nice waffles.

"I like waffles. Waffles are like pancakes with syrup traps. A waffle says to the syrup, “Hold on now. You ain’t going anywhere. Don’t even be trying to creep down the side. Just rest in these squares. If one square is full, move on to the next one. When you hear the butter, split up.” 🧇 -Mitch Hedberg

This waffle episode reminded me of pancakes, and of my maternal grandfather who was a camp cook in lumber camps, fishing camps, and construction camps around southern British Columbia from the1930s to 1960s. He lived with us after he had a stroke and was no longer able to go out and work. He cooked a lot of 'camp food' for us-- thick pea soup, baked beans, potato casseroles etc. But our favourite meal was pancakes and gravy. His pancakes were a bit yeasty-- not just baking soda and powder like our mom made. And he would serve them with vegetables-- fried greens usually-- and a very hearty gravy made from the last few days meats. We loved his cooking, and the stories that went with them. He lived with us from the time I was about six, until he died when I was 12. The cook in these camps was the most important person in recruiting workers in many years. Men would be 'in camp' for two to six weeks and had little to look forward to besides food while they were there. I think it would be interesting to explore the history of work-camp cookery. Their tools were basic but often self-invented. And the food was not just Wasp! So many of the workers came from other parts of the world that the 'Cookies' used yoghurt, paprika, buckwheat and other ingredients long before the city residents. Love your show and all the history behind the recipes. 👍❤️🥞

The Norwegian iron you held up is actually a "Groro" iron, which makes a popular wafer cookie for Christmas. The name is a contraction of "god raad" (good advice), which were sayings or Bible verses. Modern irons are sections of scroll patterns. The Norwegian waffle iron is also stovetop, producing round waffles with heart-shaped sections fron a sour cream batter.

Springtime is breeding season for pikes, so those "luce wombes" would probably have been full of eggs for a dish made around lent! Wafers with fish roe and cheese is not a dish I'm familiar with, but it doesn't sound bad at all on paper.

You remind me so much of my brother, Will. Your mannerisms, so much of the way you look, so many of the faces you make...my brother died of cancer 3 years ago at the age of 32. I love your channel for the content but I can't help but love it even more because you remind me of him. I'm sure you're nothing alike in reality. But it's so nice to see my brother in your face and eyes even though he's not here. Thanks for your videos and hard work. I appreciate all you do on this channel. You can't do much about looking like a perfect stranger, but thanks for that, too. ❤️😭❤️

Just in time for Swedish waffle day next week! The reason we eat waffles on March 25th is because of a mishearing. The Feast of the Annunciation in Swedish is called among other things vårfrudagen (day of our lady), which when pronounced a little sloppily or by children, often turns to våffeldagen (waffle day). Somehow we collectively decided to roll with it and have been eating waffles in late March since at least the 1800s.

Fun fact: the waffle also helped pave the way for Nike sporting goods. Saw this on a show called Mysteries at the Museum: one day a teacher (forget his name) wanted to make better running shoes for his athletes (at this time, the shoe bottoms were just flat pieces with metal spikes on them, and often got stuck in the ground), and so at breakfast one day, upon being served waffles by his wife, he was struck by inspiration. Taking the waffle iron to his workshed, he poured in a rubber mixture, pressed it down and then applied the resulting product to some custom-made shoes. Upon presenting them to his athletes, they worked even better than before, and thus the shoe as we know it today, and Nike, were born.

I'm delighted that you mentioned Våffeldagen and its (possible) linguistic origin. "Vår Fru" means "Our Lady", a common term for the virgin Mary as seen in the Notre Dame church. I can't help but think that us Swedes will come up with any excuse to devote a holiday to a pastry of some sort.

Years ago as a young father of a young family, I was diagnosed with severe food allergies...my food became incredibly expensive. So, I did a lot of research and calculations on how to feed myself adequately in the morning for the least cost possible. After much work, the math proved a homemade waffle each morning would be cheapest, even cheaper than regular food. I have been eating homemade gluten free waffles each morning for over 10 years. Thank you for going over the history of waffles. Best breakfast a celiac could wish for.

Stroopwafel's are my favourite waffle variant, they're perfect with tea or coffee. The proper Dutch way to eat it is to sit it on top of a cup of tea or coffee and let the heat from it melt the syrup. Also, the steam makes them nice and soft.

In France, when waffles have yeast, we call them "gaufres de lièges". They have pearl sugar in them. And it’s one of the most delicious desserts you can have. You should try them and see for yourself. Btw, i freaking love your work. I’m glad i speak english because i was looking for this kind of channel and there is none in french.

I love this channel, I have learned so much about food and history. I'm 62 and I still love to learn about everything and this guy makes it so much fun. I would love to give him a big hug 🤗. Take care and see you next time.

You talked me into the waffles then talked me out of the waffles, which gives a tasty meaning to waffling.

I remember when I was wiring my first house, my father insisted I make sure there was an outlet in the dinning room close to the table so you could put a waffle iron on the table to make them at the table.

Now you've reminded me of the antique Westinghouse waffle iron we bought the year we got married, 1965. It was the most elegant little thing, with Queen Anne legs, and an arching handle that opened the lid when you pulled it down toward you. IIRC, it was dated 1918.

MAX POSTED OH BLESSED DAY i just got my finals results and this is the perfect way to celebrate! my friends and i are all history/anthropology majors and thought it would be funny to make a batch of hardtack as “finals rations,” but they were surprisingly good with hot coffee and cocoa. maybe wenll make waffles today. we love your channel! i’ve heard like five history undergrads in my class namedrop you 😂😂😂

You should make a video about crêpes, they were first made for French travellers in the papal states and those travellers then brought the recipe back to France

I need to break out my mom's 1955 electric waffle iron and whip up a batch of waffles! As a kid, the object of dressing our waffles involved filling EVERY divot with butter and then syrup. My favorite syrup was Knott's Berry Farm Boysenberry! 😋

So, you ate leather and made garum from scratch, yet you draw the line at fish flavored waffles?🤔

The womb of a pike seems possibly referring to pike caviar, in which case caviar with waffles is still quite common in England.

My family is Catholic, and my dad would tell me stories if when he was an alter service in Mexico. It was up to them to make the communion wafers with presses like the ones you talked about at the start. He would also talk about times that they would make the batter a bit thicker so when they would pop the wafers out of the iron they would eat the left over cooked wafer

German actually uses both of those word roots to describe wafers (Oblaten) and waffles (Waffeln). The most common waffle shape are six-sided with petal-like sections. They are commonly eaten with hot fruit sauces (cherry, raspberry or blueberry) and whipped cream, sometimes icecream, too. Oblaten are generally only used for communion or as a basis for sweet baked goods. But there are these plate-sized ones with intricate patterns and a nut filling named Karlsbader Oblaten. Which, given that town is in modern Czechia, has led to come dispute over naming rights.

It was so fun to hear about the etymology of these terms as a native Polish speaker. Here we have opłatek - communion wafer (we even have a Christmas Eve tradition here, where we share a bigger, rectangular opłatek with family wishing the best for each other right before the dinner), wafel - which is a thin, crispy wafer, wafelek - wafers layered with flavoured filling in a form of a bar, sometimes coated with chocolate, gofr - a fluffy waffle, our traditional treat during hot summer days, often topped with whipped cream, jam, fruits or powdered sugar and let's not forget about our Silesian specialty oblat which is similar to a communion wafer, but sized up

We still put cardamom in our waffles (and most other baked goods) in the Nordics. It's really nice, you should give it a try.

Waffles & Wine sounds like an 18th-century version of Gin & Juice

I work at a historic site, and we had a waffle frolic for one of our events. I made the invite you described using silk satin, sewing it, and scorching it with the waffle iron. It was delightful!

My friends and I have a continuation of that waffel party tradition where "everyone helps" but in the form of sushi or dumpling parties where everyone helps construct the dishes and then we all eat them together.

In Poland we call waffles gofry and they are a dessert. not a breakfast, usually served with lots of whipped cream, caramel or chocolate and fresh fruit. They are a very popular street food, and you can find them in every tourist spot.

I don't know if you've ever looked into the history of baking powder and soda, but it's an interesting subject because it democratized so much food that had been reserved for rich people. In particular, cakes became cheaper and easier to make, where before they were a temperamental baked good.