Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. It is National Waffle Day in the United States,
Speaker 1: commemorating the first US patent on a waffle iron that
Speaker 1: was issued August twenty fourth, eighteen sixty nine. There are
Speaker 1: also other days observed as Waffle Day, including March twenty
Speaker 1: fifth in some parts of the world. So our episode
Speaker 1: on waffles is Today's Saturday Classic. This originally came out
Speaker 1: December ninth, twenty twenty. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a confession right up front here.
Speaker 1: I cannot resist the call of the novelty waffle iron.
Speaker 1: You can't. I buy them that I don't need. I
Speaker 1: love them. And that's actually how I became interested in waffles.
Speaker 1: I before I started buying things that would help me
Speaker 1: make death Star waffles, I would have told you I
Speaker 1: was a pancake person. I think just because I grew
Speaker 1: up with pancakes well, and you can also make pancakes
Speaker 1: in fun shapes with little pancake molds. That's true, although
Speaker 1: you don't usually get the same level of detail, but
Speaker 1: both utterly delicious and I thought, you know, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: has been a weird year, let's throw in more fun episodes,
Speaker 1: and waffle seemed like a good one. Waffles are, of
Speaker 1: course very popular and quite commonplace on tables and as
Speaker 1: a street food around the world, but they've evolved a
Speaker 1: whole lot over time to become the syrup vehicle that
Speaker 1: most of us think of the mass. So today we're
Speaker 1: going to take a peek at the waffles origins and
Speaker 1: the various iterations of dough or batter cooked between two
Speaker 1: hot plates. Humankind has been figuring out how to make
Speaker 1: hot cakes really for millennia. All kinds of pulpy compositions
Speaker 1: ground grains cooked on hot rocks go all the way
Speaker 1: back to the Neolithic Age. There is evidence the flat
Speaker 1: hot cakes made for cereal grains flipped to ensure cooking
Speaker 1: on both sides during this time and really various cultures
Speaker 1: all around the globe. Yeah, the waffle history, as we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it, is largely you know, European to develop
Speaker 1: what we think of, but like everybody was figuring out
Speaker 1: how to cook with grains and you know, sometimes a
Speaker 1: little water and make paste that could make a little
Speaker 1: flat cake with the iron age. Starting in twelve hundred BCE,
Speaker 1: cooking of course shifted as new tools were developed, including
Speaker 1: cooking plates precursors you could think of them to the
Speaker 1: modern day griddle, and people started cooking their flat cakes
Speaker 1: on those instead of rocks. And sometimes they would even
Speaker 1: heat two iron plates and then press batter between them
Speaker 1: for fast and even cooking. So you can see how
Speaker 1: that's very much like a waffle, just in a rudimentary
Speaker 1: kind of version. I also like the part of history
Speaker 1: where we got the upgrade of going from cooking stuff
Speaker 1: on rocks to cooking stuff on surface made for cooking. Yes,
Speaker 1: and also that we were like, let's mush them together
Speaker 1: and see what that makes. The first iteration of what
Speaker 1: would eventually evolve into what we would recognize as a
Speaker 1: waffle was called oblios, and these cakes were first seen
Speaker 1: in ancient Greece. And these oblios are sort of proto
Speaker 1: waffles because they were cooked in between two metal plates.
Speaker 1: They weren't really sweet, they were kind of like a flat,
Speaker 1: really simple cake, but the plates that were used to
Speaker 1: make them did often have designs on them. You can
Speaker 1: see pictures of some of these kind of lacy designs.
Speaker 1: In some cases, yeah, they're very pretty. I will say this,
Speaker 1: oblios is an interesting word because you will just as
Speaker 1: often see it in relation to waffle history, where the
Speaker 1: L and the e have been transposed, So it's like obelios. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think someone made that switch somewhere along the line
Speaker 1: and it has propagated in both ways ever since. So
Speaker 1: if you're ever looking at a thing and it's different,
Speaker 1: that's why I went with the oblio's version. Because the
Speaker 1: next word that we're going to talk about seems like
Speaker 1: a pretty obvious transition from that word, which is ubli,
Speaker 1: which that word evolved into over time as these flat
Speaker 1: cakes spread throughout other cultures in Europe, and ubli is
Speaker 1: a French word, and that spread was in large part
Speaker 1: because the Catholic Church adopted these ubli as part of
Speaker 1: religious rituals and events. So to be clear, these were
Speaker 1: not a replacement for communion wafers, although the name ubli
Speaker 1: does mean wafers in French. But instead they were kind
Speaker 1: of another edible item that could be included in warships.
Speaker 1: So often it was the finish to a meal with
Speaker 1: religious significance, or they were served at the end of
Speaker 1: a religious service. Ubli were made by specialists called oblo yure,
Speaker 1: who became experts at using two metal plates to cook batter,
Speaker 1: and this batter was off made with flour, a little
Speaker 1: bit of salt and wine instead of water. Ubili became
Speaker 1: established as a street food, as these specialists would wait
Speaker 1: outside of churches to sell their wares to members of
Speaker 1: the congregation as they left, particularly on Saint's Days and
Speaker 1: other important religious days. These again weren't sweet. They were
Speaker 1: savory ubili, which were often pretty large and seasoned with herbs.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they would be rolled into a cone shape to
Speaker 1: make them easier to carry home. Yeah. I heard one
Speaker 1: description or read one description where they were talking about
Speaker 1: how they were big. They were like the size of
Speaker 1: a pizza, and I was like, I suppose they're probably
Speaker 1: in some ways a relative, right. It's a large, big
Speaker 1: thing that has some herbs sprinkled on it, but of
Speaker 1: course branching branching trees. Again, there's no butter or syrup
Speaker 1: in sight here. These were still very simple in terms
Speaker 1: of ingredients and they were usually made with barleyer oat flour,
Speaker 1: but the designs started to get really ornate in medieval Europe.
Speaker 1: Some of these designs mimicked the patterns of stained glass,
Speaker 1: others recreated heraldry, and there were sometimes even more detailed scenes,
Speaker 1: such as landscapes or even depictions of biblical stories. In
Speaker 1: the twelve hundreds we also start to see early hints
Speaker 1: of the waffle pattern developing. The old French word waffla
Speaker 1: referred to a piece of honey beehive, and as these
Speaker 1: honeycomb patterned flat cakes started to become popular, they were
Speaker 1: called gofre. This is a French word for waffle that
Speaker 1: was derived from the old French waffla, and at this
Speaker 1: point in Europe, regardless of the design, waffles had to
Speaker 1: be held over a fire to be baked, so there
Speaker 1: was a degree of danger in their preparation. The usage
Speaker 1: of the word waffle, we should note, also has roots
Speaker 1: in other languages. There's waffle in Dutch, which just has
Speaker 1: one f. There's weffin which means weave in Old English,
Speaker 1: and there is vaba in Old High German. Yeah, you'll
Speaker 1: see all of those words sometimes noted as the the
Speaker 1: root word for waffle, but all of those languages are
Speaker 1: kind of being passed around and related and as street
Speaker 1: vending of waffles in France became more competitive. Things also
Speaker 1: got a bit contentious. By the time King Charles, the
Speaker 1: ninth son of Catherine de Medici was ruling in the
Speaker 1: late fifteen hundreds, this problem had escalated to such a
Speaker 1: degree that the monarch actually had to make business regulations
Speaker 1: to try to control the situation and picturing fabulous oublier
Speaker 1: and waffle fist fights. The main regulation that he came
Speaker 1: up with, coincidentally was very similar to the social distancing
Speaker 1: rule we've been facing in pandemic Vendors had to stay
Speaker 1: six feet apart. The competitive nature of selling gophro was
Speaker 1: driven by this massive level of popularity. Of course, waffles
Speaker 1: crossed all socioeconomic lines, in part because they were so adaptable.
Speaker 1: The wealthiest levels of society enjoyed much flakier versions that
Speaker 1: were made with egg and sometimes even sweetened with honey,
Speaker 1: and then poorer classes had access to versions made with
Speaker 1: lesser quality flowers and water without any of the ingredients
Speaker 1: that would really make them into a crispy or fluffy delicacy.
Speaker 1: North America was introduced to the Dutch waffles with one
Speaker 1: f thanks to colonists who immigrated in the early decades
Speaker 1: of the sixteen hundreds for expectations management here, because I
Speaker 1: know people are already thinking it stroop waffles were not
Speaker 1: invented yet. Were going to come back to that, but
Speaker 1: it does seem like at least some of these Dutch
Speaker 1: waffles were definitely intended to be sweet rather than savory.
Speaker 1: In the book Colonial Days in Old New York, written
Speaker 1: by Alice Morse Earl in eighteen ninety six, there's a
Speaker 1: description of what the author calls a Dutch uma from
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, which was a sifter used to sprinkle
Speaker 1: cinnamon and sugar on freshly made waffles. In seventeen twenty five,
Speaker 1: Robert Smith published the book Buckle Up for this name
Speaker 1: Court Cookery, The Complete English cook containing the choicest and
Speaker 1: newest receipts for making soups, pottages, frickaseas, harshes, farces, ragus, cullises, sauces,
Speaker 1: forced meats and souses, with various ways of dressing most
Speaker 1: sorts of flesh, fish and fowl, wild and tame, with
Speaker 1: the best methods of potting, collaring and pickling. As likewise
Speaker 1: of pastes, pies, pasties, patties, puddings, tansies, biscuits, creams, cheesecakes, florindines, cakes, jellies,
Speaker 1: syllabubs and custards. Also of candy making and preserving, with
Speaker 1: a bill of fare for every month in the year,
Speaker 1: and the latest improvements in cookery, pastry, et cetera. Whush,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of words. This heavily titled tome, published
Speaker 1: in London, offers the first instance of the word waffle
Speaker 1: included in English language print, and the recipe that Smith
Speaker 1: included for waffles is as follows. Quote take flour, cream sack, nutmeg, sugar, eggs,
Speaker 1: yeast of what quantity you will mix these to a
Speaker 1: batter and let them stand to rise. Then add a
Speaker 1: little melted butter and bake one to try. If they burn,
Speaker 1: add more butter. Melt butter with sac refined sugar and
Speaker 1: orange flour water for the sauce. Uh sack in this
Speaker 1: instance refers to cooking sherry. If you had not heard
Speaker 1: that term before, I like that. The solution to the
Speaker 1: I give you no measurements recipe if it doesn't work
Speaker 1: is just keep adding butter, keep putting more butter in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this base recipe has sugar and while Smith's book
Speaker 1: also offers a really yummy sounding syrup recipe. Waffles were
Speaker 1: also seen as a companion starts to savory entrees, so
Speaker 1: you might make a waffle and then ladle a stew
Speaker 1: on top of it, for example, Yummy, I love a
Speaker 1: savory waffle. I'd eat that. Yeah. Nine years later, in
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty four, a recipe for a Dutch waffle, in
Speaker 1: this case called a Dutch wafer, appeared in a cookbook
Speaker 1: by Mary Kettleby. This book is titled a Collection of
Speaker 1: above three hundred Receipts in Cookery, physic and Surgery for
Speaker 1: the use of all good wives, tender mothers, and careful nurses.
Speaker 1: And this recipe for what Kettleby called the right Dutch
Speaker 1: Wafer shows the difference in the Dutch style waffle of
Speaker 1: the time as being sweeter. It says, take four eggs
Speaker 1: and beat them very well, and then take a good
Speaker 1: spoonful of fine sugar, one nutmeg grated, a pint of cream,
Speaker 1: and a pound of flour, a pound of butter melted,
Speaker 1: two or three spoonfuls of rose water, and two good
Speaker 1: spoonfuls of yeast. Mix all well together and bake them
Speaker 1: in your wafer tongs on the fire. For the sauce,
Speaker 1: take grated cinnamon sack and melted butter, sweetened to your
Speaker 1: taste delicious. We are going to talk more about waffle
Speaker 1: irons in a moment, which was mentioned in that recipe,
Speaker 1: but for we are going to pause for a little
Speaker 1: sponsor break. We mentioned right before the break in that
Speaker 1: recipe that Tracy read, uh, wafer tongs and waffle irons
Speaker 1: by this point did indeed look sort of like large
Speaker 1: tongs with a hinge near the two cooking plates, and
Speaker 1: then long handles sometimes you know, a couple feet long.
Speaker 1: These irons would have been used in an open hearts
Speaker 1: so those long handles enabled the cook to fill the
Speaker 1: base plate with batter, shut the iron, and then push
Speaker 1: it into the open flame for cooking without risking their
Speaker 1: person getting too close or up into the flame. And
Speaker 1: as kitchens transitioned to wood stoves, those handles became shorter
Speaker 1: and the waffle iron started to be placed on top
Speaker 1: of the stove to cook instead of directly into a fire.
Speaker 1: The first waffle iron in the US is often cited
Speaker 1: as arriving in seventeen eighty nine thanks to Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 1: He had been Minister to France from seventeen eighty five
Speaker 1: up until he left in seventeen eighty nine, that being
Speaker 1: hastened by the start of the French Revolution, and he
Speaker 1: brought back two pieces of cooking tech from Europe. There
Speaker 1: was a pasta maker and a hinged, long handled waffle iron. However,
Speaker 1: this was not the first waffle iron to cross the Atlantic. No,
Speaker 1: he gets credit, and he may have caused a surge
Speaker 1: in popularity, but there were already waffle irons here. We
Speaker 1: know this because well before Jefferson is said to have
Speaker 1: brought his waffle iron to the States, and in fact
Speaker 1: before the colonies gained independence from England, waffle frolics were
Speaker 1: popular among the colonists. In seventeen forty four, what sounds
Speaker 1: like an especially frolic laden and perhaps risky waffle frolic
Speaker 1: in New York was described in a letter by twenty
Speaker 1: one year old William Livingston, written to a Miss E
Speaker 1: t and dated November seventeenth of that year. Here's what
Speaker 1: it says. Quote, we had the waffle frolic at Miss
Speaker 1: Walton's talked of before your departure. The feast as usual
Speaker 1: was preceded by cards, and the company so numerous that
Speaker 1: they filled two tables. After a few games, a magnificent
Speaker 1: supper appeared in grand order in decorum. But for my part,
Speaker 1: I was not a little grieved that so luxurious a
Speaker 1: feast should come under the name of a waffle frolic,
Speaker 1: because if this be the case, I must expect but
Speaker 1: a few waffle frolics for the future. The frolic was
Speaker 1: closed up with ten sunburnt virgins lately come from Columbus's Newfoundland.
Speaker 1: Besides a play of my own invention, which I have
Speaker 1: not room enough to describe at present, However, kissing constitutes
Speaker 1: a great part of its entertainment. Livingston, in case you
Speaker 1: don't recognize that name, went on to become the Governor
Speaker 1: of New Jersey and was one of the signers of
Speaker 1: the US Constitution. That mention of virgins from Columbus's Newfoundland
Speaker 1: maybe referring to indigenous women. That, of course, adds a
Speaker 1: potentially rather unpleasant layer to this story. In sweeter developments, though,
Speaker 1: in the city of Gudha, the Netherlands, the first Stroup
Speaker 1: waffles are made in the early eighteen hundreds, and if
Speaker 1: you have had these you know, they are made to
Speaker 1: resemble breakfast waffles, but they're really kind of a cross
Speaker 1: between a waffle and a cookie. They're made of a
Speaker 1: dough that is pressed in an iron, and the story
Speaker 1: goes that they were created when a baker combined syrup
Speaker 1: and breadcrumbs together and then pressed them. These little waffle
Speaker 1: cousins are normally either cooked or sliced to be very
Speaker 1: very thin, and then layered like a sandwich with a
Speaker 1: caramel syrup filling, and they are delicious. On August twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, the first waffle iron patent in the
Speaker 1: United States was issued, which is US Patent number ninety
Speaker 1: four thousand and forty three. It was granted to a
Speaker 1: man named Cornelius Swarthout. You'll see his name spelled a
Speaker 1: few different names. We're going with that one because I
Speaker 1: think it's the easiest to pronounce. And this was given
Speaker 1: for what he called an improvement on waffle irons that
Speaker 1: he developed in his home in Troy, New York. So
Speaker 1: this iron had a very heavy base with the bottom
Speaker 1: waffle textured plate mounted on it, and then another plate
Speaker 1: that sat on top affixed with a hinge. So the
Speaker 1: waffle iron could open, have the batter poured in, and
Speaker 1: then could flip so each side like within the thing,
Speaker 1: It could flip so that each side would get time
Speaker 1: close to the hot surface of the stove, and then
Speaker 1: a finished, evenly cooked waffle could be removed. The main
Speaker 1: improvement that was made here was the inclusion of a
Speaker 1: handle and a clasp to make flipping the plates a
Speaker 1: lot safer and easier. You couldn't mismatch the plate line up,
Speaker 1: there was less of a risk of burns. Swarthout described
Speaker 1: it like this quote. The nature of my invention consists
Speaker 1: in providing a handle connected with and forming part of
Speaker 1: a waffle iron, by means of which the same may
Speaker 1: be readily turned over without danger of slipping, and without
Speaker 1: the possibility of burning the hand. It also consists in
Speaker 1: providing a device by means of which the upper or
Speaker 1: covering portion of a waffle iron may be raised so
Speaker 1: as to expose it was the interior for filling or
Speaker 1: for removing the waffle wind done without the danger of
Speaker 1: the cover slipping back, and without burning the hand. That
Speaker 1: description probably sounds a lot like a waffle iron you
Speaker 1: have used, or you might use today, And it really
Speaker 1: does look pretty familiar. But of course, homes did not
Speaker 1: have electricity in eighteen sixty nine, and this waffle iron
Speaker 1: still had to be placed on a heat source. So,
Speaker 1: as we said, it was intended to sit on a stovetop.
Speaker 1: And over the next several decades, this basic type of
Speaker 1: waffle iron worked so well and was so popular that
Speaker 1: it was widely produced for home use. Waffle frolics or
Speaker 1: waffle parties had continued to be popular right through the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century and then into the twentieth. In a nineteen
Speaker 1: oh seven book titled Suppers Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions,
Speaker 1: author Paul Pierce lays out a detailed plan for hosting
Speaker 1: a perfect waffle party. And while this is built as
Speaker 1: a perfect way to host a party for an apartment
Speaker 1: dweller without a big kitchen, it's really no simple affair
Speaker 1: at all. No, there's so many steps, and Pierce's perfect
Speaker 1: waffle party instructions star wars some pretty involved invitations. Quote
Speaker 1: of cream white satin fashioned in the exact shape and
Speaker 1: size of a waffle section, padded with white cotton wadding
Speaker 1: and tacked to simulate the meeting place of the irons.
Speaker 1: They are then scorched the right color with a hot
Speaker 1: iron and on them is printed in sepia tints. Come
Speaker 1: and eat me. The date and address details are printed
Speaker 1: on the reverse. I don't know why that struck me
Speaker 1: as fun. It's a very involved invitation and also again
Speaker 1: a little riskye by the way, this perfect party plan
Speaker 1: also includes the printing of a quote much praised recipe
Speaker 1: for waffles to be placed at each guest's spot, and
Speaker 1: then the hosts assigns a utensil to each guest and
Speaker 1: they complete the recipe assembly line style as a team.
Speaker 1: Then the guests are seated with teams of two pouring
Speaker 1: the bat and monitoring the cooking on a rotating basis
Speaker 1: while other courses, including veal, are served. The doors to
Speaker 1: the kitchen are to be propped open throughout all this
Speaker 1: so that the teams minding the waffle cooking in the
Speaker 1: kitchen do not feel left out. It's a cute little
Speaker 1: instruction for how to make a fun party with waffles.
Speaker 1: I would do it. I'm not making those complex invites though,
Speaker 1: I'm not quilting a bunch of satin into waffles. But
Speaker 1: the first electrical waffle iron was produced in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, and it is believed that the Simplex Electrical
Speaker 1: Company was the first to make one. This Boston, Massachusetts
Speaker 1: manufacturer created an iron that made circular waffles, but the
Speaker 1: unit itself was rectangular. It had a front row of
Speaker 1: plates that folded onto the back row to create the
Speaker 1: closed cooking surface. This in write up sounds like it
Speaker 1: was not really a safe product. The regulations around electrical
Speaker 1: appliances that are in place today, for example, did not
Speaker 1: yet exist, so like during the flipping, there were like
Speaker 1: electrical contacts that would be exposed. But we should say
Speaker 1: that Simplex did go on to make other safer models though,
Speaker 1: and General Electric usually gets the credit for making the
Speaker 1: first electrical waffle iron, which the company did in nineteen eleven,
Speaker 1: designed by Thomas J. Stackbeck, but this was really a prototype.
Speaker 1: The company did not start production of waffle irons to
Speaker 1: sell for home use until the late nineteen teens. Waffle
Speaker 1: popularity continued to grow in the US in the early
Speaker 1: half of the twentieth century, so much so that manufacturers
Speaker 1: started making waffle irons that were meant to be visually
Speaker 1: pleasing as well as functional, so they could be used
Speaker 1: right at the table and they would fit into the
Speaker 1: rest of the china and tablewear and be just as
Speaker 1: pretty as anything else. Some of these had decorated porcelain
Speaker 1: exteriors and they were sold with breakfast sets that included
Speaker 1: coffee service as well as various specialized bowls to include batter.
Speaker 1: You could pour that right into the iron by the
Speaker 1: person who was being served, so you would get a fresh,
Speaker 1: hot waffle. There were all kinds of interesting waffle developments
Speaker 1: from the nineteen thirties on. We will talk about them
Speaker 1: after we hear from the sponsors who keep our show going.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty eight, Well Supper Club opened in Harlem,
Speaker 1: New York, and it catered to the musician crowd, staying
Speaker 1: open late into the night. The story goes that because
Speaker 1: a lot of their clientele was getting there too late
Speaker 1: for dinner and too early for breakfast, the two meals
Speaker 1: found a crossover in fried chicken and waffles, which has
Speaker 1: since become popular around the country. I will also say this,
Speaker 1: you will see it kind of casually referenced as something
Speaker 1: that developed as a cast off food from waffle parties
Speaker 1: were combined by people who were either enslaved or were
Speaker 1: working as service staff in homes, but that's not really
Speaker 1: well documented. This we know definitely happened. Also, chicken and
Speaker 1: waffles to live. In nineteen fifty three, the first frozen
Speaker 1: waffles called fraffles were introduced by three brothers. They were Tony,
Speaker 1: Sam and Frank Dorsa. These frozen waffles were the third
Speaker 1: invention of the Dorsa brothers, and they had also created
Speaker 1: a mayonnaise and a dry waffle mix, and they were
Speaker 1: doing that under the name Ego. Because of the egg
Speaker 1: content in the mayonnaise, most people started calling the froffles
Speaker 1: by the name Eggos, which the Dorses just adopted as
Speaker 1: the new product name. The Eggo Company was bought by
Speaker 1: Kellogg's in the early nineteen seventies and now produces a
Speaker 1: vast array of waffles and other frozen breakfast products that's
Speaker 1: still going. The Belgian waffle might surprise you in how
Speaker 1: late it joins this story. In nineteen sixty four, at
Speaker 1: the World's Faring Queens, New York, Maurice Vermersh and his
Speaker 1: family set up a waffle booth in the Belgian Village Pavilion.
Speaker 1: Their booth signage read Brussels Waffles, a bell gem product
Speaker 1: that's b e l dash Gem. Vermersh's waffles were light
Speaker 1: and fluffy, crisp on the outside, and then they would
Speaker 1: melt in your mouth. Visitors to the expo could buy
Speaker 1: them plane or with a little bit of whipped cream
Speaker 1: and fresh strawberry slices. This was actually not their real introduction.
Speaker 1: Vermersh had sold them at a smaller booth at the
Speaker 1: Seattle World's Fair two years earlier to kind of test
Speaker 1: the waters. But this treat took off in New York
Speaker 1: and so that's usually noted as the birth of the
Speaker 1: Belgian waffles popularity. To most of the customers, this pastry
Speaker 1: was just a revelation. The waffles that were normally served
Speaker 1: in the US were a lot heavier. They tended to
Speaker 1: be topped with a bunch of syrup and butter. Charging
Speaker 1: a dollar per waffle. The Vermershas needed to keep two
Speaker 1: dozen waffle irons going and have ten people come help
Speaker 1: them slice strawberries just to keep up with the orders. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that gets listed, is like
Speaker 1: one of the most popular things at the World's Fair
Speaker 1: that year. Maurice Vermersh did notice, however, that a lot
Speaker 1: of people didn't understand why they were called Brussels waffles.
Speaker 1: They didn't really get that his version of waffles was
Speaker 1: a family recipe developed from a regional style in Belgium.
Speaker 1: So he just started calling them Belgian waffles and that
Speaker 1: was easy to understand and caught on with customers. Over time,
Speaker 1: the Belgian waffle, which he did not keep control of
Speaker 1: as a name, evolved to be more like the waffles
Speaker 1: that US customers had already been eating, and it got
Speaker 1: farther and farther away from this handheld street food that
Speaker 1: Vermersh had sold. Today, a Belgian waffle has deep, deep
Speaker 1: pockets in its waffle texture to hold a lot of
Speaker 1: butter and toppings. And it's a huge departure from the
Speaker 1: idea that they're supposed to be so delicious and simple
Speaker 1: on their own that they need few, if any accouterment.
Speaker 1: You would be hard pressed to carry most restaurant dishes
Speaker 1: that are described as Belgian waffles around with you as
Speaker 1: you walk. Yeah, keep in mind they're actually supposed to
Speaker 1: be a handheld food. There is we should mention another
Speaker 1: popular type of waffle that hails from Belgium. It is
Speaker 1: a very different texture in flavor. This is the Liga.
Speaker 1: It's named after Liga Belgium. Aliga is denser and chewier,
Speaker 1: and this version of a waffle, according to legend, has
Speaker 1: been around since the Middle Ages, though it's only been
Speaker 1: documented since the early nineteenth century. They are made with
Speaker 1: pearl sugar, which comes in these dense clumps, and they
Speaker 1: don't dissolve into the batter. Instead, pieces of pearl sugar
Speaker 1: caramelize into sweet bits throughout the waffle. Waffles have also
Speaker 1: inspired innovation in non gastronomic areas. When Bill Bauerman, who
Speaker 1: was a track coach at the University of Oregon, applied
Speaker 1: for a patent for a shoe where the quote sole
Speaker 1: has short, multi sided, polygon shaped studs which provide gripping
Speaker 1: edges that give greatly improved traction. It used a waffle
Speaker 1: iron to cast the textured soul. This gave birth to
Speaker 1: the Nike Company, and that shoe is part of the
Speaker 1: collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Can
Speaker 1: also find it online if you just search Nike waffle trainer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the US, August twenty fourth is National Waffle Day.
Speaker 1: That is the day that Cornelias swore that out was
Speaker 1: granted his patent. International Waffle Day is March twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: and if that's not enough waffle holiday action, you can
Speaker 1: also celebrate National Waffle Iron Day on June twenty ninth.
Speaker 1: And of course, there's a whole world of pastries that
Speaker 1: share culinary DNA with waffles that we have not even
Speaker 1: touched on here, like the Italian pitzele or the Middle
Speaker 1: Eastern jidebi, and both of those are deep fried. There's
Speaker 1: also Irish style waffles which have a really crispy texture,
Speaker 1: and Korean style which are really heavy on the dessert
Speaker 1: type toppings. Also a range of savory waffles to really
Speaker 1: match any palette or preference. Also some things that have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with waffles that people describe my best
Speaker 1: sort of insert nationality here waffle like okonoma yaki, which
Speaker 1: is just not a thing that's like waffle in any way,
Speaker 1: but sometimes people call them Japanese waffles. Right yeah, uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Waffles are international and have been adapted in a million
Speaker 1: different ways. They're also like super fun different ways that
Speaker 1: restaurants and chefs like to make their own twists on waffles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to host a waffle frolic. I did have
Speaker 1: a funny thing where I was doing Google searches for
Speaker 1: waffle Frolic and there's apparently a restaurant in Ithaca named
Speaker 1: waffle Frolic YEP, which I would love to go to
Speaker 1: just for the name. Uh yeah, when you mentioned waffle
Speaker 1: Frolic to me while you were working on this, I
Speaker 1: kind of went down a whole waffle Frolic rabbit hole
Speaker 1: because I was like, you know, slang changes over time, yeah,
Speaker 1: and if like if I read a whole book series
Speaker 1: that was set in the nineteen twenties and there was
Speaker 1: slang in it that I had never heard before at all,
Speaker 1: and I was like, does this mean something different than
Speaker 1: we listen? After all of those riskue hints, I started
Speaker 1: to wonder if waffle Frolic wasn't code. But it sounds
Speaker 1: like just a delicious party. Thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of
Speaker 1: the archive, if you heard an email address or a
Speaker 1: Facebook RL or something similar over the course of the show,
Speaker 1: that could be obsolete now. Our current email address is
Speaker 1: History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can find us
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