Giant dutch pancakes!

Giant dutch pancakes!

For centuries the rich dutch society looked down on those who had to eat more than 2 meals a day to pursue their daily heavy workload. Breakfast was indeed the mark of a life of labor and poverty.

In the Netherlands however, those hearty meals gave birth to a contemporary brunch staple: the pancake. Originating from the East of Holland, the ‘pannekoek’ came to spread outside the dutch borders all the way to the dutch settlements of North America at the end of the 17th century. However, these farmer breakfast cakes were far from the famous puffy stack, drizzled with chocolat sauce and whipped cream. The dutch pancakes of the 17th century were, indeed, made from buckwheat flour and cooked in a pan so large that the pancake would usually reach a diameter of (!) half a meter (!) and a thickness of nearly (!) four (!) centimeters! Stuffed with bits of bacon fat and drizzled with stroop (a dark molasses), the dutch were indeed ready for a day in the fields.