Good Friday Pancakes
March 21, 2008 — britishgingerMy friend, Tanya, visited last year, her first visit to Canada. Tanya and I went to school together in London during the 1960s, where “school dinners” were served daily in the “hall” (North American equivalent of lunches in a gym.) Our parents paid a few shillings per week for this “privilege,” though, it was a complete waste of money. The dinners were truly awful and unless you’ve sampled that food, it’s hard to comprehend its taste, texture, or appearance.
Anyway, last year when Tanya was here I made pancakes for breakfast one morning. However, our North American idea of pancakes (or hotcakes, as some like to call them) standing high on a plate, squares of melting butter and the obligatory Aunt Jemima (butter-flavoured) maple (questionable) syrup, was not what she expected.
“I must take home maple syrup for Tim and Max,” she said guardedly, catching sight of the pancakes, and what we mad Canadians consume on a fairly regular basis.
I remember, as she sat beside me at the table, our version of breakfast on a plate in front of her, the look on her face as she saw warm pats of butter oozing on a syrup-drizzled stack. To us, it looked like a hearty breakfast, complete with bacon, orange juice, ice cold milk, and strong coffee. To Tanya it must have appeared as foreign as anything she’d seen up to that moment.
I recall smiling and urging her to “Just try them. They’re good. .. Really.”
In clear view of a new tin of Quebec maple syrup, traditional winter scene on its label, Tanya scrutinized one of Canada’s national treasures, and uttered apologetically, “I’ll eat the pancakes with the maple syrup, but, no, I just can’t eat them with butter on them.”
She looked wounded. Even Dubya’s shock-and-awe took on a whole new meaning for my friend that morning.
Five months before, I had my own (positive) shock-and-awe moment, when, sitting with Tanya in a cafe in Muswell Hill Broadway, I caught sight of pancakes listed in the menu. Immediately, my image of fluffy cakes, awash in syrup and English butter gave way to British childhood memories of thin crepes, drizzled in freshly-squeezed lemon and sugar.
My mother used to make pancakes like these frequently, but this was London again and I was ready to sample the fare I’d forgotten.
To say that I enjoyed the cafe’s pancakes would be short of the truth. In actuality, I feasted, devoured, and polished-off the meal in what seemed like seconds. They were, in a word, delicious, and my recollection tells me Tanya looked a bit perplexed at my reaction that day.
But then came France. It happened on a morning excursion called “Retracing the DaVinci Code Walk,” or some title like that. Near lunch, we stopped at an outdoor cafe in the Tuillerie Gardens and ordered drinks. A bright, autumn, day, there was a chill in the air and I was hungry when a waiter passed by with a tray for the next table and I caught the aroma of something sweet. The French love their crepes, and well they should, selling them at outdoor kiosks as we sell ice cream or popcorn. So, the menu, like any typical French menu, listed all sorts of crepes, (the favourite was Nutella,) but I opted to try something different - Grand Marnier (liqueur) crepes.
The waiter delivered them almost immediately (the crepes are all pre-made.) In front of me now was a large plate completely covered with one equally-expansive crepe, its liquid orange gleam sprinkled with sugar, and piping hot.
Then I tried that first bite, unlike anything I’d ever had, and I was hooked. I’m embarrassed to say that I ordered another, finished off with a strong coffee.
Today, Good Friday, I’ll forego the Canadian pancakes in favour of crepes - though, lemon or Grand Marnier, I don’t know. It’s as good a day as any to enjoy them again.
