When the A & J Gem Café of Uptown closed, I was despondent. During the hazy days of postcollegiate life, comfort food had a different meaning. What comforted me was anything but mom’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes, which haunted my youth. After college, what comforted me was food that was something I could call my own—something that I chose as a definition. I am a fried-rice girl. I am all about puff pastry. With the closing of the A & J, I was losing another part of my identity—the “I’m a gingerbread-pancake girl” part.
In college, gingerbread pancakes were a steamy stack of late-morning warmth after a cold, confusing night. My accomplices would gather after the previous night’s adventures and kidnap a table at the A & J Gem. We murmured about who did what while scraping the vestiges of mascara from under our eyes. The conspiratorial tone of the all-night revelry was magnified by the seemingly adult decisions that continued to confront us. Except instead of beer or Jägermeister, we had to choose between treading the safe route between buttermilk and silver dollar or rushing headlong into gingerbread with espresso whipped cream. The terrible memory of all the Bisquick ’cakes of my past dwindled as quickly as the incipient hangover.
Of all victuals that can be termed comfort food, pancakes are among the top seven. They are one of those meals that transcend class and generational boundaries. Is there any more clichéd image than that of snooty Ms. Fancy Pants waiting for Jeeves to accomplish a perfect flambé on the crêpes suzette? And yet I remember when money was tight enough that pancakes for dinner was a common occurrence. Check out any pancake house; you’re just as likely to see empty nesters there as newlyweds. But perhaps a more telling reason that the pancake fits comfortably into the fabric of culture is that nary a world cuisine is without its particular version of the pancake. Call them hotcakes, flapjacks, griddle cakes, or whatever you like; as long as batter is dropped on a hot surface, then flipped, it’s a pancake.
Locals of Danish heritage know the golf ball-shaped aebleskiver cakes well. Batter is poured into a special pan with round divots; once the cake begins to set and crisp around the bottom, a knitting needle (or other handy skewer) is used to pierce and flip the little cake. Whether stuffed with tart apples or dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar, these delicacies are best eaten in July, during the annual Aebleskiver Days festival in Tyler, Minnesota.
Dutch pancakes, sometimes called Dutch babies, are serious enough to have spawned a restaurant chain. The batter is cooked in a special pan that causes the pannekoeken to rise and roll around the edges. In the eponymous restaurant, servers follow the Dutch tradition of running the pancake to the table the minute it’s out of the oven to show generous hospitality to their guests.
The French, of course, have an intimate relationship with their crêpe. Created with more eggs and lacking a rising agent like baking powder, the crêpe is a thin, flat vehicle for both the savory and the sweet. On the high end, you have the fantastically flammable crêpes suzette, set aflame with brandy and liqueurs in the finest fashion. More commonly, you have the street crêpe. Paris wouldn’t be Paris without the many crêperie trucks selling their warm wares, oozing with Nutella or simple butter and sugar.
Hotcakes don’t need to be sweet; many countries consider them a savory item. The Japanese okonomiyaki is a griddle cake made with grated yam in the batter and topped with treats like nori, fish flakes, and ginger. In much the same way, Ethiopian injera is used as a plate or vehicle for the main meal. Indian dosas, Russian blini, Mexican tortillas, even Middle Eastern pitas can all really be considered pancakes.
The closest rival to our own affection for pancakes may be the Brits’. Celebrating Pancake Day is a long-held tradition in the U.K. On Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) people were encouraged to use up the last of their rich food, to clear their cupboards before the Lenten season. Pancakes came to be the traditional way of doing this. On what has become known as Pancake Day, many towns across the Isles hold grand feasts and festivals—but none so grand as that of the village of Olney. Legend has it that an old village woman was busy flipping her cakes when she heard the church bells calling her to worship. Still sporting her apron, still flipping her pancakes, she ran to church. Her pious act is recreated every year as hundreds of locals race through town, with pan in hand.
It has always surprised me that the International House of Pancakes is anything but international. What a blown opportunity. The American pancake preference, to which the chain caters almost exclusively, is fluffier and thicker than most others. The same cakes in Britain are referred to as drop scones. We also tend to like them sweeter; it’s quintessentially American to stack them high and drench them in maple syrup.
The gingerbread pancakes of my youth were an eye-opening experience. That something so elemental and ordinary could become so irreverent and different, while still delivering that relaxed-slump-in-the-booth feeling, was remarkable. When I make them now, in my somewhat more settled life, I often wonder if there is another person somewhere across the planet, teetering between comfort and chaos and tucking into a stack of pure, culturally defined yet sumptuous individuality.
Gingerbread Pancakes
3 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon clove powder
1 cup strong black coffee
4 eggs
1 stick melted and cooled butter
Combine all dry ingredients in large bowl; set aside. Combine all wet ingredients in separate bowl. Slowly add wet ingredients to dry, stirring gently until just combined. Lumps are fine; don’t overmix. Let batter rest for five minutes.
Spray skillet or griddle with nonstick cooking spray or brush with clarified butter and preheat. Test small scoop of batter; flip when edges begin to dry and bubbles appear on the surface. Do not press down on pancake. Serve with sweetened cream. Yields twelve thick cakes.
