The history of waffles, from the Stone Age to street food to your local supermarket
Humanity’s first shot at waffles was probably cooked on a rock. They weren’t a happy discovery made during a camping trip, but were probably some cutting-edge cuisine back in the Neolithic, or Stone Age over four thousand years ago. These proto-waffles certainly lacked refinements like an indented grid or maple syrup, but the core of what’s now a favorite breakfast food was still there— a cereal-based batter that was cooked not baked or fried, but seared on both sides. Like many cultural inventions, it seems safe to say that we’ve improved on this recipe over time, but clearly our ancestors knew they were on to something big, even before they could slather their dish in whipped cream and strawberries.
Once people started mastering metal in the Iron Age, rocks were traded out for metal plates, often held at the end of sticks to more easily reach into ovens. These early griddles basically sandwiched the batter as it was placed in heat, allowing it to be cooked in half the time. This concept would be picked up by the ancient Greeks, who called the resulting flat cakes obleios, or wafers. Like wafers you find in stores today, obleios weren’t especially cake-like, instead being cooked to a flatter, crispier consistency. They also flavored them as a savory food, using cheese and herbs instead of sugar and syrups. Europeans continued munching wafer-styled waffles well through the Middle Ages, with the only major innovations being to make them larger and sell them from street vendors.
Standing out with indented sqaures
The 13th century ushered in a new era of two-sided flat-cake cuisine, with waffles finally gaining their signature grid patterning, plus the name that we know today. A blacksmith enhanced the traditional iron griddle plates, hinging them together and putting in raised patterning that would increase the cakes’ surface area, allowing for more efficient heat distribution. More importantly, the indented squares that now marked waffles added a fun design element that caught people’s imaginations, earning the name wafel as a reference to a section of a bee’s honeycomb or woven webs. Other designs have been created since then, including coats of arms and even landscapes, but none are as iconic as the square pits we now associate with waffles.
Waffles’ popularity continued to grow throughout Europe. In the late 1500s, France’s King Charles IX even had to issue regulations concerning how close waffle vendors could cluster together to cut down on the number of fights in the streets. Recipes showed some divergence as well, with lower classes eating flatter, crispier waffles made from flour and water, while upper classes added more cake-like textures to their waffles with milk and eggs in the mix. This interest in softer, puffier waffles eventually grows into what we now think of as a Belgian waffle, which generally includes yeast to complete the effect. As popular as this concept seems now, it was certainly not part of the original flat cake recipe.
Sweeter, slower, faster and frozen in America
Waffles were brought to North America first with Pilgrims, and then again with Thomas Jefferson after a trip to France. Maple syrup finally found its home among the square divots in the 1800s, which alongside molasses, pushes waffles closer to the sweet side of the flavor spectrum. In 1869, Cornelius Swarthout of New York made his contribution to waffle history, patenting yet another improvement on the waffle griddle concept. Obviously the squares had to stay, but Swarthout’s design allowed waffles to be cooked over a stove top as long as the chef was willing to slow the process down, flipping the new waffle iron over to cook both sides. In a way, it was a step backwards from earlier technology that aimed to cook waffles faster, but it made waffle-cooking accessible in a new way, earning the date of the patent it’s own holiday in the form of National Waffle Day on August 24th of each year.
Waffles’ ties to technology meant that they kept changing over the 20th century. 1904 saw the invention of the waffle cone for ice cream, although considering waffles’ origins as flat, crispy wafers, you might not call this a major innovation. Alongside many other domestic objects, waffle irons were electrified in 1911, removing the need for the stove top, but often retaining the need for flipping. “Froffles” made frozen waffles available to consumers in 1953, although their egg-heavy flavor would eventually see them renamed as today’s Eggo products that are now part of a $211 million market in the United States. Finally, Americans got a proper introduction to Belgian waffles in 1964, although originally as “Brussels waffles.” Again, marketing concerns lead to a new name, and the vanilla and yeast-infused recipe was eventually circulated simply as Belgian waffles.
Blueberry, gluten-free, fried-chicken flat cakes
Today it seems that we have a huge range of waffle variations to choose from. Waffles can be found with fruit, whole wheat, chocolate, ice cream, pumpkin and of course, fried chicken. It seems that throughout this grand history, we’ve really only given up two aspects of previous waffles— the speed of cooking both sides at once, and the opportunity to buy waffles on the street from a horde of competing waferers when walking about town.
Source: Waffle History Page 1: The Origin & Evolution Of Waffles, The Nibble
