a long batter story.

My love affair with pancakes started early. I would venture to say that they are a part of my earliest memories. Food seems to be the most consistent memory, the element that anchors the past days of my life. Looking at my childhood table, I can still see the glass bottle labeled Griffins, with stray syrup streaming down the side, which would end up on the plate, the table, and my hands. Breakfast for dinner was, and still is, a favorite. I think part of the appeal is the shroud of rebellion. It’s supposed to be breakfast, not dinner, which means that we are doing something wrong that feels so right. I also have memories of sitting at my grandma’s kitchen table, staring up at the intricate wallpaper with my hands resting on her plastic gingham table cloth, waiting with great anticipation for the circular goodness she was tending in the skillet, making with love, for me.

Somewhere close to the time when my age hit double digits, I began to take the pancake matter into my own hands. I was usually the first one up on Saturday mornings, watching Zac in all his high school glory rule Saved by the Bell. I remember watching my dad effortlessly pour the pancake batter onto a sizzling griddle, from a mix that only required the ability to read, pour and crack an egg. This would have been one of my earliest “I will just do it myself” affirmations. I realized there was no longer any point in waiting for an adult to get up and make breakfast, and at that moment, I decided to become an exceptional maker of pancakes. Seriously.

When I was a freshman in college, I was invited on a road trip to South Carolina, which, I felt at the time, officially entered me into the club of real adults, and simultaneously scared the boogers out of my mother. The redeeming news for my mother and me was that the caravan of these young college women I still call my friends spent the first night on the road at my aunt’s house, a mother too, and a good portion of the trip with Kari’s family, mom included. That was during my “I don’t eat red meat phase” which means my two most vivid food memories from the trip were one, me at Kari’s dinner table, picking all of the beef out of the lasagna and arranging it in an inconspicuous pile at the edge of my plate, and two, the oatmeal pancakes with orange syrup. That morning, my taste for pancakes became more refined. I scribbled the recipe down, and made them for my family shortly after arriving home.

When I was trying to lose weight at one of those times in my life when I was, I, like many Americans, turned to the weight loss guru from South Beach. What was the first thing that made me think, just maybe, I could do it? My discovery of his recipe for oatmeal pancakes. The unlimited amount of pistachios, lean chicken, and sugar-free jello were more depressing than helpful. A half of a cup of oatmeal, a fourth of a cup of cottage cheese, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon and four egg whites in a blender were my savior, for the ten days I was able to endure. I still make them from time to time, because if you like healthy stuff, they are more than edible (I sometimes add some vanilla yogurt and honey, and cut out one of the egg whites, if you are interested in making them).

When I lived in Florida, after a long work day in a foreign place with few friends, my evening ritual for about two weeks, until I realized it was unhealthy, was to make myself some homemade whole wheat pancakes covered in sugar free syrup (another phase) and sit on my butt. It was comfort that I was looking for, something familiar, and pancakes, once again, became my consolation. Eventually, after reading a book about the perils of dairy, I created a delicious recipe for soy pancakes. Regardless of their ingredient or intended purpose, pancakes were faithful, and chivalrous.

During Tulsa time, in my old house with the great front porch, some kind of pancake is usually consumed sometime in Saturday’s morning hours. A few days before I left for Korea, on a rainy Friday morning, Tonia whipped up a batch, using a buckwheat mix and left over liquid from a chalky fruit protein drink. They were delicious, pineapple chunks and all. Most Sunday mornings I can be found at the breakfast table of my parents, alongside my grandparents, and my mother’s animals, eating whole wheat pancakes prepared for me by my father. They used to be Shawnee Mills buttermilk pancakes, but it seems my parents pancake taste has refined over the years too, though the syrup is still Griffins.

In Korea, said pancakes are difficult to discover. There aren’t IHOPs and Village Inns lining every other street corner. Six days after my arrival, I emailed my friend Chris, and requested that she eat some pancakes for me, as they were the unattainable desirable that I couldn’t get loose from my brain. So one would understand the joy in my heart a few weekends ago when my friend sent me some words over the internet with the phrase “pancakes? saturday?” at the close of the email. My response was that I would not get excited until they were actually in a stack in front of me, because if it didn’t happen, I was not sure if I could deal with the disappointment. It happened, stack and all, with almonds, an eight dollar bottle of ready whip, and ten dollar bottle of real maple syrup.

Because of our history and their unyielding presence in my life, I feel a sort of distinguished kin-ship with flapjacks. They have served me well, taught me much, and in one humble form or another, proved to be unwavering. This is why today’s endeavor that took place on the streets of Seoul was not just a trip to find a good country breakfast. It was a journey. And due to the fact that we didn’t know where the Butterfinger Pancakes (not the candy bar, the dairy product) was actually located, and were following directions written by someone with pancake batter for brains, it became more like a quixotic pilgrimage. We were so, so hungry. I mean really hungry. In order to save myself for what was ahead, I decided to wait and eat until I had the good stuff. This meant that though I woke up at eight, I intentionally consumed only four cherries and six ounces of water before leaving the house two and a half hours later. I also was not planning on getting lost. But lost is what we got, and also nowhere for a really long time. After a subway ride, and then heading one direction in order to turn right around and head the opposite, multiple trips to the same street and multiple attempts at asking for directions, and also the passing of an hour and a half, we find this century’s savior, access to the internet, and eventually, our destination. The result? A conquering sense of bliss.

There was a wait of fifty minutes. We would have waited longer. The menu was thorough and beautiful, on a laminated legal sized menu of brown craft paper, with bent corners and daring pancake concoctions (stuffed mozzarella and tomato, anyone?) and endless breakfast options, covering both sides of the page. I decided on the blueberry, after reading the “none of our fruits are canned” disclaimer at the bottom. One could find irony in the fact that they, as relayed to me by the kind Korean waitress, “run out of blueberry”. I ate, with a noble amount of devotion to the cause, every single bite and scrap and crumb of the harvest grain and nut pancakes I had chosen.

I sat back in the chair of our high top table, looking at the sleek interior of the pancake house, and at the empty plates of my equally stuffed friends, and I was thankful to have people in my life that also get what is so very great about pancakes, as it somehow validates my history. I was even more thankful that they did not yield when faced with obstacles, like hunger and confusion, but endured and pressed on, like true pancake knights.