50 Fun Facts About Waffle

The English word 'waffle' comes directly from which language?

Behind it sits the Frankish word for honeycomb, which is exactly what the iron leaves behind.

The Frankish root of the word means what?

The first English appearance of the word comes in an 18th-century recipe that begins 'Take flower, cream'.

In which year does the word first appear in English?

By then the thing itself had been cooked in Europe for four centuries.

What did the ancient Greeks cook between hot metal plates?

Those plates became the long-handled irons of medieval Europe, held over an open fire.

What was the medieval ancestor of the waffle called?

In its earliest form it was flour and water only, exactly like a communion wafer.

In which year did the guild of medieval wafer-makers form?

Its members went on to make the light pastries that turned into waffles.

What brought flavourings like orange blossom water into these wafers in the 11th century?

Before that, sweetness came from locally sourced honey, if it came at all.

The first known waffle recipe, from the late 14th century, was written by whom?

His instructions end with the practical bit: grease the iron with an oiled cloth if the dough sticks.

Which 16th-century painter's work shows waffles in enough detail to count the grid?

The pattern counts out as a 12 by 7 grid with square sides, implying a thin batter much like a Brussels waffle.

Brussels waffles are easiest to tell from Liege waffles by what?

They are leavened with egg white or ale yeast, which is what gives them the big open pockets.

Who formalised the Brussels waffle recipe in 1842?

He was a Swiss baker working in Ghent who had trained under pastry chefs in central Brussels.

Where does the term 'Belgian waffle' actually come from?

Maurice Vermersch, a vendor from Brussels, promoted it, and the thicker style caught on in America.

At which event was the thick Belgian style popularised in America?

The tell is the iron: a Belgian waffle needs plates an inch and a half deep.

What leavens a standard American waffle?

They come out denser and thinner than the Belgian kind, and get treated as a sweet breakfast.

How is a Hong Kong 'grid cake' eaten?

Butter, peanut butter and sugar go on one side first, and street hawkers sell it warm.

Who patented the first stove-top waffle iron, in 1869?

His improvement was a handle and a swivelling hinge, so the iron could be flipped without burns.

What did that 1869 patent add to the design?

Irons of a sort had existed since the 1400s, but flipping one over a fire was a good way to lose the waffle.

Which company introduced the first commercial waffle maker to run on mains power, in 1918?

Waffles were moving indoors: by then only 29 professional oublieurs were left working in Paris.

How many professional waffle craftsmen remained in Paris by the early 20th century?

The trade had collapsed into home cooking, helped along by boxed mixes in the 1930s.

Who invented the frozen Eggo waffle, in 1953?

He worked out how to cook, freeze and package the things at scale, which nobody had managed before.

Where does the Eggo brand name come from?

The same name later covered waffle mix and potato chips before the frozen waffle took over.

Which company bought Eggo in 1968?

Four years later Leo Burnett handed them the line 'L'eggo my Eggo', which has outlived several ad agencies.

Because the slogan sounded like a toy brand, the waffles were later made in the shape of what?

The waffles were produced through a collaboration with The Lego Group in the later 2000s.

At the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, what did Ernest Hamwi curl into an ice cream holder?

An ice cream vendor beside him had run out of paper cups, and the modern cone was the improvisation.

Chicken and waffles began as part of which culinary tradition?

That original version is plain waffle, pulled stewed chicken and gravy, no syrup anywhere.

Which 1938 Harlem establishment popularised the soul food version?

That version keeps the waffle as breakfast, with butter and syrup, and puts fried chicken beside it.

Before chicken, which food did hotels outside Philadelphia serve with waffles in the early 1800s?

The fish was seasonal, so the kitchens switched to a bird that was available all year.

Pouring rubber into a kitchen iron produced which running-shoe innovation?

Bill Bowerman wrecked his wife's Belgian waffle iron doing it, around 1970 or 1971.

Whose waffle iron did the Nike co-founder destroy in the experiment?

He had already designed the Nike Cortez, which stayed in production for decades.

Where did the first Waffle House open, in 1955?

It opened over Labor Day weekend and the original building is now a museum.

Who founded the Waffle House chain?

Rogers had started out as a short-order cook in New Haven in 1947, and both men died in 2017 within two months of each other.

How many locations does Waffle House operate?

They sit across 25 states, concentrated in the South and Midwest.

The stroopwafel was first made in which Dutch city?

Folklore says bakers were sweetening leftover scraps and crumbs with syrup.

What does the word 'stroopwafel' literally mean?

In Australia they get called coffee toppers, after the habit of warming one over a hot cup.

How is a stroopwafel split into its two thin wafers?

The edges are trimmed with a cookie cutter first, then the syrup goes in and glues it back together.

Which country has over a dozen regional waffle varieties?

Most are sold warm by street vendors and dusted with confectioner's sugar rather than drowned in syrup.

What depth of iron distinguishes a Belgian waffle from an American one?

Recipes are usually leavened with baking soda, though some hold on to the older yeast method.

Which 1806 event pushed European sugar prices up, briefly threatening the waffle trade?

Beet sugar production on the continent then drove prices down to historic lows within decades.

What are professional waffle irons usually made of?

Domestic ones are electric, with thermostats and sometimes plates you can lift out and wash.

Traditional waffle irons were used how?

The long wooden handles are the giveaway in every medieval painting of a waffle stall.

In Stranger Things, Eggo waffles are the favourite food of which character?

The 2016 story beat gave the brand global attention far beyond North America, the only region where it is actually sold.

FEMA's informal 'Waffle House Index' is used to gauge what?

If a location stays open, even on a limited menu, the area is faring well. The chain pre-positions generators, food and 'jump teams' before hurricanes.

Liège waffles get their caramelised crust from chunks of what baked into brioche-style dough?

Also called gaufres de chasse, 'hunting waffles', they are the most common type sold in their home country and are richer and chewier than the Brussels kind.

On which date do Swedes celebrate Våffeldagen, their national waffle day?

The name sounds like Vårfrudagen, 'Our Lady's Day', the feast of the Annunciation nine months before Christmas. Cloudberry jam is a classic topping.

Bergische waffles from Germany's Bergisches Land are always made in what shape?

They are served with cherries, cream and sometimes rice pudding as part of a traditional Sunday afternoon feast.

Which chicken sandwich was sold at Waffle House in the 1960s until it outsold the house menu?

S. Truett Cathy then ran a diner called the Dwarf House. Losing the deal pushed him to spin the sandwich off into its own chain.

Waffle House claims to serve roughly what share of all eggs eaten in the United States?

It also claims to be the world's leading seller of ham, pork chops, grits and T-bone steaks, all cooked in an open kitchen.

Because another chain owned the name in Indiana, the Georgia diner chain traded there as what?

Another chain already owned the rights to the name in the state. That original Indiana chain later rebranded as Sunshine Cafe.

Which agency coined the 'L'eggo my Eggo' slogan in 1972?

By mid-2009 the brand held 73 percent of the US frozen waffle market, though a listeria shutdown and Atlanta flooding caused a shortage that autumn.

Walter Cleyman first served Brussels-style waffles in the US at the 1962 world's fair in which city?

They had debuted at Expo 58 in Brussels and came with whipped cream and strawberries. Two years later Maurice Vermersch made them famous in New York.