Pancakes, etc.

My EC made pancakes for dinner. They were delicious, but then I started thinking about pancakes. As you know, when I start thinking about something, I can’t help but share it with you. It’s a compulsive behavior.

First of all, my sons don’t much care for “Breakfast for Dinner.” I consider that a parenting failure on our part. Breakfast for dinner is great, mostly because it doesn’t occur in the morning. And, it is an easy go-to when you don’t feel like cooking dinner for dinner. Also, eating pancakes at night are good if you are trying to carbo-load in preparation to sit around and watch tv for a couple hours.

Here’s the weird part. I grew up calling them “hotcakes.” When my dad was a young man, he was a short-order cook at the Walgreens counter in downtown Salt Lake City, and that man cook make some great hotcakes. Weirder still, my EC grew up calling them “hotcakes” as well. Somewhere we lost our way, and morphed to the less robust “pancakes.” It stuck. Another parental shortcoming.

Of course, your vernacular may vary: Flapjacks, johnnycakes, griddlecakes, hotcakes, pancakes etc., are all acceptable terms. (Note: Crepes, for all their beauty, are not pancakes. Neither are Swedish pancakes. Or German pancakes. Not trying to be an isolationist here, but that’s how it goes.)

For some inexplicable reason, when my EC makes pancakes, they are consistently better than mine. We use the same stuff to make the batter (whether from scratch, Biquick, or Krusteaz) but her pancakes are always thicker, fluffier and more moist. Some kind of Voodoo, but I am the beneficiary, so no complaints.

Of course, however good a pancake may be, in all honesty they are really just a vehicle for the stuff you put on them. And there the options become endless. Here are the regular varieties in the MMM household. (Butter is implied in all variations.)

• Plain old maple syrup. Yes, it is boring, but it is America.

• Half maple, half Knott’s Berry Farm Boysenberry Syrup.

I know, that is for beginners. Now it gets better:

• Nutella

• Nutella with peanut butter

• Chunky peanut butter with maple syrup. (This has been my groove lately.)

• Biscoff spread.

• Dulce de Leche. (Or as they called it in Chile, “Manjar.”)

• Dulce de Leche with sliced bananas.

• Jam, jelly , preserves, etc.

• Sliced fruit – blueberries, bananas, strawberries, whatever. (You can tell that I am not a ‘fruit-on-pancakes’ guy. I am even less a ‘turn a perfectly good pancake into some weird dessert with whipped cream’ guy.)

• A long time ago, when I was a kid, my parents use to make homemade chokecherry syrup. It was amazing. A few years ago I found some in a supermarket, and was all excited – it was nasty.

Some people start messing with the pancakes when they are still in batter form. They stir in blueberries, or chocolate chips, or whatever. It is wrong.

Another place where I part ways with a lot of people is that I am not a big fan of mixing sweet and savory. My personal mantra? “There is sweet, and there is savory, and never the twain shall meet.”

I do know of one exception: In NYC, on the Upper West Side, there is a restaurant called Jacob’s Pickles. One of their signature dishes is Chicken and Pancakes. The pancakes are made out of biscuit dough batter. They then throw a handful of crumbled bacon on top, and add a couple of fried chicken fingers. Add the pure maple syrup, and my mantra goes out the window. Oooh, lookie! A picture!

There is one other place where the pancakes blur the lines in my tastes. The Wildflower Bread Company does a lemon ricotta pancake that is really good, with a berry compote on top. I must admit that I like it, even if it is a girly kind of pancake.

There you go. More regarding my thoughts on pancakes than you ever wanted to know. Now I am curious about your opinions.

• Do you do breakfast for dinner?

• What do you put on your pancakes?

• Where did you eat your best pancakes ever, and why made them the best?

I just looked at the clock, and it is midnight. Debating…

PS: I know some of you will disagree with me. That is OK. As my Grampa used to say….“If everyone liked the same thing, they’d all be chasing your Gramma.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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