Margins
Pancake book cover
Pancake
A Global History
2008
First Published
3.51
Average Rating
128
Number of Pages

Round, thin, and made of starchy batter cooked on a flat surface, it is a food that goes by many flapjack, crêpe, and okonomiyaki, to name just a few. The pancake is a treasured food the world over, and now Ken Albala unearths the surprisingly rich history of pancakes and their sizzling goodness. Pancake traverses over centuries and civilizations to examine the culinary and cultural importance of pancakes in human history. From the Russian blini to the Ethiopian injera, Albala reveals how pancakes have been a perennial source of sustenance from Greek and Roman eras to the Middle Ages through to the present day. He explores how the pancake has gained symbolic currency in diverse societies as a comfort food, a portable victual for travelers, a celebratory dish, and a breakfast meal. The book also features a number of historic and modern recipes—tracing the first official pancake recipe to a sixteenth-century Dutch cook—and is accompanied by a rich selection of illustrations. Pancake is a witty and erudite history of a well-known favorite and will ensure that the pancake will never be flattened under the shadow of better known foods.

Avg Rating
3.51
Number of Ratings
93
5 STARS
17%
4 STARS
33%
3 STARS
34%
2 STARS
13%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads

Author

Ken Albala
Ken Albala
Author · 16 books
Ken Albala, Professor of History at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA and Director of Food Studies in San Francisco, is the author or editor of 25 books on food. These include academic monographs, cookbooks, reference works and translations. He is also series editor of Rowman and Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy. His current project is about Walking with Wine.
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