The pancakes I have known and loved

Have you ever considered how many incarnations of pancakes there are in the world?

I grew up with fatty, thin, large blini. I would spread sour cream or carefully distribute lox on mine and fold them up into neat quarters. The contrast of the mildly sweet dough with the sour or salty filling is one of my cherished childhood food memories.

I can't say that the French crepe had much hold on my heart, but the next pancake that took my fancy is the good old American diner pancake.

When I moved to the States I brought some expectations with me. Lockers in High School were the coolest thing ever. Jelly Beans must be the most delicious candy invented and David Letterman is the cornerstone of comedy.

I really don't know where the high regard for Dave came from, but while I appreciate his weary presence on late night TV, I quickly discovered much more worthy comedy gods. Jelly Beans were also a let-down. Waxy and oddly-flavored, they weren't the Willy Wonka creations I had hyped them up to be. Lockers were still the coolest thing ever.

With some of my American dreams shattered, I quickly looked around for new ones and the imagery of an American Diner and its contents quickly took hold of me. My friends and I would meet up before school in an incredibly basic, uninspiring diner by our school. We sat at the long counter and I watched the guy at the griddle station squeeze out portions of dough onto the hot surface. I saw that round plop of dough transform into a curiously yellow-tinted, fluffy pancake. These got served up with some crispy bacon, a small glass of orange juice and acidic coffee. You helped yourself to the sticky bottle of fake syrup. I loved it.

 

Cut to years later when I was living in a slightly hippy-ish part of San Francisco. I was an adult, I had a job, a cold studio apartment and a minor food blog obsession. The humble diner pancake no longer held my interest. I had by that point absorbed most of mainstream American food culture and was now delving deeper into different muffin-making methods, into types of frosting and Thanksgiving turkey preparations.

It was in this California kitchen that I first made these puppies. The idea of throwing whole grains into my pancake batter was wholly foreign to me. The words 'oatmeal pancakes' had me imagine grey, gummy disks with dry oats throughout. It was my trust in Molly Wizenberg, the allure of using buttermilk for a project, and there being something suitably health-foodish about them that fit in with my new surroundings, which made me take the leap.

You mix two cups of oats together with two cups of buttermilk and let the bowl hang out in your fridge overnight. The next morning, the two ingredients have melded into a sloppy white mass that will be the base of your batter. You mix this with a decidedly un-health-foodish amount of melted butter and the rest of the ingredients and end up with a thick batter that can be spooned onto your hot pan.

Interestingly, the finished product has many of the same good qualities as my fluffy diner pancake. They're good for soaking in syrup (a vital griddle cake quality), they marry well with bacon, or other breakfast meats. They also store incredibly well and are a good snack cold out of the fridge, but can also be enlivened with a quick microwave sojourn. In fact, that's what I do with my pile of cakes: each morning, one or two on a plate get heaped with frozen raspberries and go for a brief spin in the microwave. Some maple syrup gets poured on top and I have a wholesome breakfast.

Same as with the diner pancakes, the newness factor of these has long worn off. My affection for this marvelously solid breakfast recipe remains strong though.

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