Waffles vs. Pancakes vs. French toast: Which is best?

[Twiggly the Gnome]

This is a tough one as I like all three, but assuming pancakes means American pancakes, and not crepes or some other horror, it's got to be pancakes.

I'm not usually a fan of crepes, but when I'm in China I'll get a freshly made jian bing every morning.

 

[MGibster]

I have never gone, in my recollection, to a place that gave you blueberry syrup and called that blueberry pancakes. And if they did, I’d never go back.

I have and it's an abominiation unto the Lord! A lot of times the waitstaff at Cracker Barrel will ask me, "The blueberry is in the batter, is that okay?" And I'm like, "Yeah, how else would it be?"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is a tough one as I like all three, but assuming pancakes means American pancakes, and not crepes or some other horror, it's got to be pancakes. I remember discovering American pancakes when I went to the US when I was 10, and I've been obsessed with them ever since (but only get them like 1-2 times/year outside of the US).

They're incredibly simple to make, with ingredients that are common and cheap. Why not make them more often than that?

 

[billd91]

I have and it's an abominiation unto the Lord! A lot of times the waitstaff at Cracker Barrel will ask me, "The blueberry is in the batter, is that okay?" And I'm like, "Yeah, how else would it be?"

Now that I think about it, I have seen cases where the blueberry pancake is a regular pancake with the fruit ON it in thick syrup. I would find that acceptable for some fruits typically eaten as larger slices like peaches, but blueberries are small and should go into the pancake as it's cooking on the griddle before the flip.

 

[Parmandur]

This is a tough one as I like all three, but assuming pancakes means American pancakes, and not crepes or some other horror, it's got to be pancakes. I remember discovering American pancakes when I went to the US when I was 10, and I've been obsessed with them ever since (but only get them like 1-2 times/year outside of the US).

They are crazy easy to make, even well.

 

[Parmandur]

In the interest of spreading homemade delight, here's Alton Brown's recipe for pancakes, Metric info included:

5-Ingredient Semi-Instant Pancake Mix Recipe | Alton Brown

5-ingredient mix. 10-minute pancakes. 1 easy breakfast. Alton Brown's semi-instant pancake mix is a go-to pantry staple for weekend brunch.

altonbrown.com

 

[Richards]

When I was in college, one of the local restaurants offered up "all you can eat" buttermilk pancakes for a ridiculously low price one night of the week. So naturally, I'd go there on that night and order the "all you can eat" pancakes. And then I observed that "all you can eat" was really "all you'll be willing to eat," because without fail the first batch was fantastic (served in stacks of three, as I recall), the second helping was also fantastic, and if you asked for a third helping the pancakes were always deliberately (I'm sure) undercooked and unappetizing. So six delicious pancakes for a cheap price was still a really good deal, but you were best off not expecting to eat any more than six....

Johnathan

 

[Willie the Duck]

I can make really good GF waffles. Like you say, it's not as easy to make good GF pancakes. And I wouldn't even bother trying with french toast.

I've had good luck with mixing corn- and rice-flour for pancakes. They don't really taste like standard American pancakes, though-- more of a savory thing (perhaps good with fried chicken, or shredded chicken with beans and salsa).

Yes. Lemon curry is the correct answer.

To what question? If we're turning this into a no-holds-barred favorite food battle, the only issue I'll have is only picking one.

Do crepes count as pancakes?
or do they just surrender to the superior batter sweet?

Ooh. That's an issue. If pancakes also get crepes and latkes and soufflés (what about tortillas and lefse? is a rising agent of <none> count as a rising agent?) and all the other round, flat griddle-cooked lightly risen starch things, that quickly becomes an entire category fighting mere individuals.

No and... yes, kind of.
Fried Chicken was already a West African dish before the slave trade, but once the southern planters had slave populations, it became a meat dish slaves had ready access to and so became something a staple. Then, like a lot of other West African preparations, it spread into general southern cooking - where Black Americans are still significantly concentrated. Migration north to support war industries helped spread Black cuisine in general across the rest of the US. So, yeah, in a way it's still a significant food for a lot of Black Americans like other foods their ancestors cooked and handed down as a culture across the generations.

Quoting myself to clarify: while chicken & waffles IS a common meal in black southern cuisine, it’s much more common EAST of the Mississippi than west of it. Part of that is because of the strength of Creole cuisine in Louisiana and Tex-Mex in Texas, etc.
So while I’m a black southerner who has lived most of his life in the American south, all of that has been in Louisiana and Texas. Result: I didn’t have chicken & waffles until I was in my late 40s or early 50s when someone opened a Lolo’s Chicken & Waffles in the next county, so I did have to search for it the first time I had it. While both were nicely done and could stand alone without the other, the combination (as mentioned before) just didn’t hit home with me.

Yeah, supposedly the dish originated back east when some musicians arrived at a diner after a gig too late for dinner but too early for breakfast. It's not a dish I associate with Southern culture though it's delicious. Truthfully, I've been disappointed in the chicken & waffle dishes I've had here in Arkansas. Mostly it's the chicken part that's not so good. We used to have a food truck that made a mean chicken & waffle dish, but they either went out of business or moved to another city.

Chicken in general has an interesting relationship with traditional cooking of historic American black culture. Chicken in general switched from being a luxury meat to the cheap variety sometime after the start of the first migration. Those old-timey politicians stumping that they'd put 'a chicken in every pot*' did so because chicken was the expensive meat (mind you, compared to 'cow' or 'pig,' not to 'steak' or 'pork chop'). It wasn't until the industrial or 'broilers' era, where chickens breed specifically for use as meat instead of eggs started to dominate (helped along by war efforts, where raising some chickens alongside the Victory Garden was something non-farming families did), that this trend switched.
*whether they did so or not. It seems to have mostly been used as an attack on opponents on being clueless to the real conditions of working class voters
Pairing chicken with waffles seems to have existed in the plantation South (along with everywhere else that waffles existed, to some degree), and migrated with the southern population, post Civil War. It slowly gained in occurrence in restaurants as chicken use in general did; becoming famous at Richard "Dickie" Wells ('Mr. Harlem")'s club of the same name in the late 30s, but spread back out through the culinary community until another revival in the 70s.

So it's one of those weird culinary things that cycled through specific cultures and the general population a few times (especially if we consider both at-home and in-restaurant usage).

When I was in college, one of the local restaurants offered up "all you can eat" buttermilk pancakes for a ridiculously low price one night of the week. So naturally, I'd go there on that night and order the "all you can eat" pancakes. And then I observed that "all you can eat" was really "all you'll be willing to eat," because without fail the first batch was fantastic (served in stacks of three, as I recall), the second helping was also fantastic, and if you asked for a third helping the pancakes were always deliberately (I'm sure) undercooked and unappetizing. So six delicious pancakes for a cheap price was still a really good deal, but you were best off not expecting to eat any more than six....

My wife has noticed that 'all-you-can-drink' wine also ends up being 'all you can be patient enough to get,' as waitstaff are amazingly scarce in appearance once you select that option.
So far as I can tell, the only 'all-you-can-' that ever seems to work out are buffets (which you at least see ahead of time what you're getting to choose from) or all-you-can-eat tacos, since again you know what you are getting into and it's mostly just spiced ground beef and refried beans heated next to the same shredded cheese and lettuce, salsa, and shells/tortillas you could have bought at the grocer yourself.

 

[Parmandur]

Red Robin, bottomless steak fries. Generous, and tasty throughout.

 

[ichabod]

Sadly the abberations were often served in school for lunch.

It's a little known fact that beholders evolved from school lunch pizzas.