pancakes with a story

August 17 2009 by Kristin at The Kitchen Sink in Breakfast,Recipe » 21 comments

While we were in Northern Minnesota, my grandpa made us all a big platter of pancakes for breakfast one morning. As he sat on his kitchen stool flipping the hot cakes, one by one, my grandma told us the story behind the recipe: Pancakes by Norma. My grandparents used to drive the hour south to Duluth every so often to spend the night “in town.” They’d stay with my grandpa’s brother and, in what became a tradition, his wife Norma would serve them her pancakes—the very pancakes my grandpa was frying up that morning.

On one trip to Duluth, my grandma jotted down the recipe and, when she got back to her own kitchen, scrawled it into the margins of one of her most well-used cookbooks for safekeeping. Now, my grandma’s handwriting has a tendency toward illegibility—at least for the uninitiated. But I’ve read countless pieces of mail from her—sometimes featuring her golf game, other times providing a garden update, always recounting the weather—and I’ve learned to decipher her hand. Here’s the recipe in her cookbook (but, don’t worry; given your lack of practice, I’ve translated it for you below):

As it turns out, Norma was really on to something with her pancakes. The recipe yields a classic buttermilk pancake—no whipped egg whites, no fancy ingredients like cornmeal or ricotta, no embellishments like blueberries or chocolate chips. And it yields an excellent pancake—sturdy, yet fluffy, with just the right amount of richness and the slightest whisper of sweetness.

Following breakfast, I asked my grandma for Norma’s recipe. After copying it down, I continued to flip through that cookbook, bemused by many of the recipes, which clearly grew out of an earlier era of American cookery, but also thoroughly charmed by the whole idea of of the book. It’s a church cookbook—members of the church submit a recipe or two, creating, in the end, a repository of the congregation’s favorite recipes. You can almost imagine the stories behind the recipes—the birthday parties that featured a certain layer cake, the holiday table that featured a glazed ham. In some cases, that history is right there in the recipe title—Super Bowl Dip, for instance, or Chuck’s Hot Dish. My grandma’s notes adorned many of the recipes (often she simply notes “good”), giving me a feel for her own experiences with the recipes.

Norma’s Pancakes, of course, are just like the recipes originally printed in the church cookbook—it’s a recipe with a story, a history of its own. All of this is enough to make me nostalgic for a time when recipes were passed on scraps of paper and collected in spiral-bound booklets. That whole process often gets lost for me as I scavenge the Internet for recipes, digging through online recipe databases: immense reserves of recipes disconnected from the cooks who developed them and the people who have made and ate them.

But in thinking about all this as I readied this post, I realized that my nostalgia was ill-founded. That cookbook connected recipes with stories. And isn’t that, after all, exactly what’s going on with food blogs? In a way, this site has become my version of that cookbook of my grandma’s. It’s the place where I copy down great recipes for safekeeping. It holds a collection of recipes that once belonged to someone else. But all those recipes, just like Pancakes by Norma, become mine on this site through their stories.

Pancakes by Norma

Yield: 2 quarts of batter

8 eggs, well beaten
1 tablespoon kosher or sea salt
8 heaping teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup sugar
1 quart buttermilk, well shaken
all-purpose flour to consistency
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, plus more if needed

In a large bowl, beat the eggs very well. In another bowl, whisk together the salt through sugar. Whisk the sugar mixture into the eggs. Add the buttermilk and flour, alternating between the two, until you’ve reached your desired pancake batter consistency.

Heat a griddle and melt 1 tablespoon of butter on it. Cook the pancakes until golden brown, adding more butter, if necessary to keep the griddle greased.

21 comments so far. »
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Monica h says on August 17 2009 at 7:50 pm:

I love family recipes! This is a great post with good lookin’ pancakes. Thanks for sharing the recipe (and story) with us.
KathyCalculates says on August 18 2009 at 5:22 am:

I learned to cook at my mother’s knee and have benefited from having those recipes I learned from her in my memory bank all these years. When my own daughters began to cook, I decided it was time to write those very basic recipes down somewhere and began a recipe book for each of them which contained those recipes and ones I had added to my “favorites” list over the years. You are so right about food blogs being the modern day way of passing that special recipe…and the story that belongs with it…to the next home cook who will add her own special touches to it and pass it on again! I’m one of those people who read your blog and then leave without comment, but I enjoyed this entry so much that I just couldn’t do that today!
Whitney says on August 18 2009 at 5:58 am:

I really like the thought that our blogs are becoming a record of stories, with recipes that inspire them.

Makes me smile.
Sara says on August 18 2009 at 7:11 am:

The church cookbooks my mom helped put together when I was growing up are my favorite places to start looking for recipes. Such a treasure. And a piece of history to see what families in my town were eating as I was growing up.

I printed this one and am adding it to my recipe binder.
Dolce says on August 18 2009 at 7:19 am:

My mother has a little notebook with recipes written down that is so old it is now hard to turn the pages without having them torn apart… And I believe she even have somewhere a written down recipe from her grandmother… Flipping through such treasures is a story in itself indeed
Gena says on August 18 2009 at 8:49 am:

Hey,

Sometimes when I use a lot of baking powder in pancakes, they can a slight metallic/aluminum taste. Did you get any of that with the 8 tsps?

xo

gk
Kristin at The Kitchen Sink says on August 18 2009 at 8:56 am:

monica h: Me too! Thanks!

Kathy: Thanks so much for leaving a note!

Whitney: Me too. : )

Sara: It’s almost like a time capsule — especially for a small town.

Dolce: This cookbook is getting there. You know the best recipes are on the pages that are in the worst shape: oil spattered, batter stained, etc.

Gena: It is a lot of baking powder, but I didn’t get a metallic taste at all. They’re delicious. I should say, though, that I’m a big fan of baking powder in general.
tara says on August 18 2009 at 12:10 pm:

Do you know the book “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”? It starts with a family, including Grandpa, around the kitchen table with pancakes flipping. Your story is just as charming.

Love a recipe with a history, thanks so much for sharing. Church cookbooks are always a gold mine for reliable recipes. These look wonderful.
heather says on August 18 2009 at 1:29 pm:

thank you for that wonderful story. makes me long for home and the memories i have there with my family. pancakes this weekend!

cheers,

*heather*
Dawn in CA says on August 18 2009 at 3:18 pm:

@Gena – you probably already know this, but just in case… be sure you are using aluminum-free baking powder. Several brands are readily available in most supermarkets. Honestly, I don’t know why they even bother making the other kind, when the aluminum-free baking powder works just great.
ingrid says on August 19 2009 at 12:30 pm:

I wish my grandma had a place where she kept her “recipes”.Unfortunatelyshe kept them all in her head. She didn’t like anyone in the kitchen with her so, her girls (including my mother) weren’t taught any of them.

I’ve not been very successful with pancakes and will give this a try.

Hope you don’t mind but I’m adding you to my blogroll!

Thanks for all the yummy recipes and good stories.
~ingrid
megan says on August 19 2009 at 1:05 pm:

i really like this post. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do with my cooking/baking blog. I’m a newly married working wife trying to learn to cook and feed my husband. I’m documenting my successes to make again in the future, and also sharing them with my mom and friends from home (and anyone else who wants to read)
Jenny says on August 19 2009 at 2:33 pm:

Perfect timing!! I have leftover buttermilk from the Blueberry Lemon Bundt recipe you recently posted. I plan to make these this weekend!
Sagan says on August 19 2009 at 4:33 pm:

That’s such a nice idea that your recipes are continuing on in this blog just like your grandma’s recipe book.

My mum passed down her mum’s recipe book to me last year at Christmas- I keep it on my desk and flip through it a couple times a week, just looking at the recipes. Somehow there’s magic in those pages.
diane says on August 19 2009 at 7:19 pm:

Your story was so sweet and thoughtful.We are so lucky to have so many great food memories with the story….it was such a fun weekend! Love,MOM
Caroline says on August 20 2009 at 9:09 pm:

That photo of her scrawly writing is awesome. I LOVE old cookbooks with scrawl between the lines.
nik says on August 21 2009 at 9:08 am:

*swoon* your words and your food are delightful. Yum!
Kelly says on August 23 2009 at 6:08 pm:

Enjoyed the pancakes. I scaled down to make 4 servings. My husband said they were the best pancakes I had ever made – he ate 6 of them!
Kristin at The Kitchen Sink says on August 25 2009 at 3:18 pm:

tara: I have seen the cover but haven’t read it. I need to check it out! Thanks for your note.

heather: Or, hey I know, pancakes EVERY weekend! : )

Dawn: Good tip!

ingrid: How sad! I suppose then it’s up to you to start creating recipe legacies for future generations.

Megan: Thanks!

Jenny: Oh, that cake! I need to make that again soon. Hope you like the pancakes.

Sagan: So, so much magic.

Mom: It sure was!

Caroline: Well I’ll pass the compliment along to my grandma. She’ll be pleased.

nik: Thank you!

Kelly: Wonderful! I’m so glad.
Eryn says on August 29 2009 at 10:08 am:

I just tried making these but did something terribly wrong. Would you mind giving the amount of flour you like to use?
Kristin at The Kitchen Sink says on August 30 2009 at 6:30 pm:

Eryn: I’m so sorry to hear that. You should add flour until you achieve a typical pancake batter consistency—something thin enough enough to pour out of a ladle, but thick enough to have a little body when you pour it onto the skillet. I know it’s a lot of flour — I want to say four cups or so.