Waffle

History

14th-16th Centuries

It’s in the late 14th century that the first known waffle recipe is penned in an anonymous manuscript, Le Ménagier de Paris, written by a husband as a set of instructions to his young wife. While it technically contains four recipes, all are a variation of the first: Beat some eggs in a bowl, season with salt and add wine. Toss in some flour, and mix. Then fill, little by little, two irons at a time with as much of the paste as a slice of cheese is large. Then close the iron and cook both sides. If the dough does not detach easily from the iron, coat it first with a piece of cloth that has been soaked in oil or grease. The other three variations explain how cheese is to be placed in between two layers of batter, grated and mixed in to the batter, or left out, along with the eggs.

Though some have speculated that waffle irons first appear in the 13th-14th centuries, it isn’t until 15th century that a true physical distinction between the oublie and the waffle (wafel / gaufre) begins to evolve. Notably, while recipes like the fourth in Le Ménagier de Paris is only flour, salt and wine – indistinguishable from common oublies recipes of the time – what does emerge is a new shape to many of the irons being produced. Not only are the newly-fashioned ones rectangular, taking the form of the fer à hosties, but some circular oublie irons are cut down to create rectangles. It’s also in this period that the waffle’s classic grid motif appears clearly in at least one known fer à oublie – albeit in a more shallowly engraved fashion – setting the stage for the more deeply gridded irons the Dutch were about to introduce.

By the 16th century, paintings by Joachim de Beuckelaer, Pieter Aertsen and Pieter Bruegel clearly depict the modern waffle form. Bruegel’s work, in particular, not only shows waffles being cooked, but also features a man wearing three waffles strapped to his head, playing dice for waffles with a black-masked carnival-goer. The detail of this section is so fine that the waffle pattern can be counted as a large 12x7 grid, with cleanly squared sides, suggesting the use of a fairly thin batter, akin to our contemporary Brussels waffles (Brusselse wafels).
Earliest of the 16th century waffle recipes, Om ghode waffellen te backen – from the Dutch KANTL 15 manuscript (ca. 1500-1560) – is only the second known waffle recipe after the four variants described in Le Ménagier de Paris. For the first time, partial measurements are given, sugar is used, and we see spices being added directly to the batter: Take grated white bread. Take with that the yolk of an egg and a spoonful of pot sugar or powdered sugar. Take with that half water and half wine, and ginger and cinnamon.
Alternately attributed to the 16th and 17th centuries, Groote Wafelen from the Belgian Een Antwerps kookboek is published as the first recipe to use leavening (beer yeast): 'Take white flour, warm cream, fresh melted butter, yeast, and mix together until the flour is no longer visible. Then add ten or twelve egg yolks. Those who do not want them to be too expensive may also add the egg white and just milk. Put the resulting dough at the fireplace for four hours to let it rise better before baking it. Until this time, no recipes contain leavening and can therefore be easily cooked in the thin moule à oublies. Groote Wafelen, in its use of leavening, implies the need for the deeper irons (wafelijzers) depicted in the Beuckelaer and Bruegel paintings of the time.

By the mid-16th century, we see signs of waffles’ mounting French popularity. Francois I, king from 1494-1547, of whom it was said les aimait beacoup (he loved them a lot), had a set of waffle irons cast in pure silver. His successor, Charles IX enacted the first waffle legislation in 1560, in response to a series of quarrels and fights that had been breaking out between the oublieurs. They were now required, ”d'être au moins à la distance de deux toises l'un de l'autre. ” (to be no less than two yards from one to the other).

17th-18th Centuries

Moving into the 17th century, unsweetened or honey-sweetened waffles and oublies – often made of non-wheat grains – are the type generally accessible to the average citizen. The wheat-based and particularly the sugar-sweetened varieties, while present throughout Europe, are prohibitively expensive for all but the monarchy and bourgeoisie. Even for the Dutch, who controlled much of the mid-century sugar trade, a kilogram of sugar was worth ½ an ounce of silver (the equivalent of ~$32 for a 5lb. bag, 08/2012 spot silver prices), while, elsewhere in Europe, it fetched twice the price of opium. The wealthier families’ waffles, known often as mestiers, were, "...smaller, thinner and above all more delicate, being compose of egg yolks, sugar and the finest of the finest flour, mixed in white wine. One serves them at the table like dessert pastry."
By the dawn of the 18th century, expansion of Caribbean plantations had cut sugar prices in half. Waffle recipes abounded and were becoming decadent in their use of sugar and other rare ingredients. For instance, Menon’s gaufre from Nouveau Traité de la Cusine included a livre of sugar for a demi-livre of flour.
Germany becomes a leader in the development and publication of waffle recipes during the 18th century, introducing coffee waffles, the specific use of Hefeweizen beer yeast, cardamom, nutmeg, and a number of zuickerwaffeln (sugar waffles). At the same time, the French introduce whipped egg whites to waffles, along with lemon zests, Spanish wine, and cloves. Joseph Gillier even publishes the first chocolate waffle recipe, featuring three ounces of chocolate grated and mixed into the batter, before cooking.
A number of the 18th century waffle recipes take on names to designate their country or region/city of origin – Schwedische Waffeln, Gauffres à l’Allemande and, most famous of all the 18th century varieties, Gauffres à la Flamande, which are first recorded in 1740. These Gauffres à la Flamande (Flemish waffles / Gaufres de Lille) are the first French recipe to use beer yeast, but unlike the Dutch and German yeasted recipes that precede them, use only egg whites and over a pound of butter in each batch. They are also the oldest named recipe that survives in popular use to the present day, produced regionally and commercially by Meert.
The 18th century is also when the word “waffle” first appears in the English language, in a 1725 printing of Court Cookery by Robert Smith. Recipes had begun to spread throughout England and America, though essentially all are patterned after established Dutch, Belgian, German and French versions. In 1789, Thomas Jefferson is fabled to have returned from 5 years in Europe with a waffle iron, setting off a fad for waffle frolics (waffle parties), though waffle frolics had been documented as early as 1744 in New Jersey, and the Dutch had long since established waffles in New Amsterdam (New York City).

Liège waffles, the most popular contemporary Belgian waffle variety, are rumored to have been invented during the 18th century, as well, by the chef to the prince-bishop of Liège. However, there are no German, French, Dutch or Belgian cookbooks that reference them in this period – by any name – nor are there any waffle recipes that reference the Liège waffle’s distinctive ingredients, brioche-based dough and pearl sugar. It isn’t until 1814 that Anthony B. Beauvilliers publishes a recipe in l’Art du Cuisiner that brioche dough is introduced as the base of the waffle and sucre cassé (crushed block sugar) is used as a garnish for the waffles, though not worked into the dough. Antonin Carême, the famous Parisian pastry chef, is the first to incorporate gros sucre into several waffle variations named in his 1822 work, Le Maitre d'Hotel Français. Then, in 1834, Leblanc publishes a complete recipe for gaufres grêlées (hail waffles), where gros sucre is mixed in. A full Gaufre de Liège recipe does not appear until 1921.

19th-21st Centuries

Waffles remained widely popular in Europe for the first half of the 19th century, despite the 1806 British Atlantic naval blockade that greatly inflated the price of sugar. This coincided with the commercial production of beet sugar in continental Europe, which, in a matter of decades, had brought the price down to historical lows. Within the transitional period from cane to beet sugar, Florian Dacher invented the Brussels Waffle (Brusselse Wafel), the predecessor to American “Belgian” waffles, recording the recipe in 1842/43. Stroopwafels (Dutch syrup wafels), too, rose to prominence in Holland by the middle of the century. However, by the second half of the 1800s, inexpensive beet sugar became widely available, and a wide range of pastries, candies and chocolates were now accessible to the middle class, as never before; waffles’ popularity declined rapidly.
By the early 20th century, waffle recipes become rare in recipe books, and only 29 professional waffle craftsmen, the oublieurs, remained in Paris. Waffles were shifting from a predominately street-vendor-based product to an increasingly homemade product, aided by the 1918 introduction of GE’s first electric commercial waffle maker. By the mid-1930s, dry pancake/waffle mix had been marketed by a number of companies, including Aunt Jemima, Biscquick, and a team of three brothers from San Jose, CA – the Dorsa’s. It is the Dorsa’s who would go on to innovate commercial production of frozen waffles, which they began selling under the name “Eggo” in 1953.
Then in 1958, a Belgian restauranteur, Maurice Vermersch, showcased his version of the Brussels waffle at Expo 58 in Brussels. Following his success there, he made plans to introduce them to America, but was beat to the U.S. by another salesman who sold his own Gaufres de Bruxelles with modest success at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. It was in 1964, however, when Maurice Vermersch finally debuted his “Bel-Gem” waffles at the 1964 New York World’s Fair that they took hold in the States. Originally intended as a marketing device, to work around Americans’ poor recognition of Brussels geographically, the “Bel-Gem” name stuck and quickly morphed into the distinctly American concept of the “Belgian waffle”. In practice, contemporary American “Belgian waffles” are actually a hybrid of pre-existing American waffle types and ingredients, together with some physical attributes of both Vermersch’s and true Brussels waffles.
In the 21st century, waffles continue to evolve. What began as flour and water heated between two iron plates are now popular the world over, produced in sweet and savory varieties, in myriad shapes and sizes. Even as most of the original recipes have faded from use, a number of the 18th and 19th century varieties can still be easily found throughout Northern Europe, where they were first developed.