A taste of home: Waffles embodied the essence of 1980s sitcom family life; a celluloid dream that became Bee Wilsons taste of home
If you love someone, you make them pancakes. If you really love them, you make them waffles.
This was one of the many things I learned from watching too much American TV while growing up. Most of my ideas about how families should behave came from sitcoms and romcoms, these wonderful places filled with cheesecake and hugs and beautiful people in cosy knitwear. Alone, after school on the sofa, in our north Oxford house, eating doorsteps of bread and jam, I gazed on these other homes with their huge fridges and ready supply of fresh, zesty orange juice. And waffles!
I promised the kids Id make em waffles, said Nancy, stricken with cancer, on Thirtysomething. These, I gathered, were not like the savoury frozen potato waffles our busy mother sometimes bought to indulge me (much as I relished those for tea, with a fried egg and ketchup). These TV waffles sounded like airy rectangles of home.
By the time that I had my first child, aged 25, my head was crammed with celluloid dreams of nurturing someone through food. I aspired to be Dustin Hoffman making french toast with his child in Kramer vs Kramer. Or Susan Sarandon in Stepmom, whose commitment to motherhood is so great that shed sooner forego a vital oncology appointment than miss spaghetti and meatball night. I was nostalgic for homes Id never had. I yearned to give my son the kind of milk-and-cookies upbringing I knew from The Cosby Show.
It goes without saying that the reality of feeding our children was different. Disappointingly, I wanted the children to eat something besides milk and cookies. At mealtimes, as one child or the other spat out vegetables or grumbled about spice, I lacked the saintliness or knitwear of Susan Sarandon. But still, at the back of my mind, there has always been a toasty-warm screen home, where you can make someone feel loved through food. I come closest to reaching this feeling of providing nurture when I make almond waffles, first borrowed from an American friend, but since adapted.
In our family, these waffles have healed many wounds. To me, they are a high-protein snack and not too sugary as things go. To the children, they are a vanilla-scented treat. Everyone for once is reconciled.
Almond waffles
A child who eats a few of these will have consumed half an egg and the equivalent of a handful of almonds. These waffles are high in calcium, protein and fat. I notice that on the mornings I make these, my seven-year-old is not quite so rabidly hungry at the school gates when I pick him up. If you dont have a waffle maker, copy Marge Simpson (in Treehouse of Horror VII) and make square pancakes instead, cooking for 1-2 minutes a side in a hot pan.
Serves 4
80g unsalted butter, melted
20g caster sugar
2 large eggs
100g plain flour (Ive made it with gluten-free flour for coeliac friends and it works fine)
80g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
170ml whole milk (or almond or coconut milk if youd rather)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 Preheat the waffle maker. Put all the ingredients in a jug and blitz with a hand-held blender. Make the waffles as per the instructions for your machine. Be careful not to overfill, or you get a batter volcano. I find 2-3 minutes about right, or until they are golden and crisp.
2 Serve with maple syrup (or honey). In a sitcom, youd offer a generous jugful, but I measure out a little dipping pot per child to stop them drenching half a bottle on a single waffle. We have fruit too: whatevers in the fruit bowl, sliced.
- Bee Wilson is a food journalist and author. He latest book, This is Not a Diet Book, is out now (Fourth Estate 6.99).
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