Caffé Solo
123 N. Third St., Mpls., (612) 332-7108
Breakfast: Monday-Friday 7:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m.; Saturday-Sunday 8:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
Nicollet Island Inn Restaurant
95 Merriam St., Mpls.; (612) 331-3035
Breakfast: Monday-Friday 7:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.; Saturday 8:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m.; Sunday prix-fixe buffet brunch 9:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
Ruby's Café
1614 Harmon Pl., Mpls.; (612) 338-2089
Breakfast and lunch: Monday-Friday 7:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday 8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. (breakfast only).
Al's Breakfast
413 14th Ave. SE, Mpls.; (612) 331-9991
Breakfast: Monday-Saturday 6:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
 Photo By Jim Skuldt |
Take the pancake. It doesn't look so tough. In fact, it looks sort of fey and nondescript. But pick up a couple of books, and the next thing you know: pancakes, the basis for life as we know it. Stronger than a speeding locomotive. More culturally significant than NASA, Sharon Sayles Belton, and the Romance Channel rolled into one.
Pancakes appeared half a million years ago as humankind's first bread, cooked on humankind's first griddle--fire-heated rocks. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs showed how the dead expected to feast on pancakes in the afterlife. Plato ate pancakes. Apicius, the world's first famous gourmet, had his pancakes with honey and pepper, and then killed himself because he ran out of feast funds. Ancient Slavonic tribes had religious ceremonies all about pancakes--the round cake stood in as a symbol for their sun god. Then pancakes became the great pre-Lenten celebration food.
All those "cakes" they mention in the Bible? Well, those weren't Lady Baltimores and Double Fudge cakes--they were all pancakes. Seen Macbeth lately? Well, when ancient Scots went to battle, they were provisioned with iron plates and sacks of oats--for field meals of oat pancakes. All those stories about the Native Americans teaching settlers how to grow corn? Well, those weren't for corn-on-the-cob boils, but for cornmeal pancakes, which were often eaten three times a day.
Then pancakes went and settled the entire Eastern seaboard: oat pancakes fed the lumberjacks, buckwheat pancakes nourished the hardscrabble family farmers in the northeast, corn pancakes were cooked in the fields of the agricultural South. We built this city on pancakes! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. (Fact blizzard courtesy of Pancakes: From Flapjacks to Crêpes by Dorian Leigh Parker and The Pancake Handbook by Stephen Siegelman, Sue Conley, and Bette Kroening.)
More Eaters' Digest Articles
- Swedish Roulette (Apr 14, 1999)
- Tea and Chromosomes (Apr 7, 1999)
- Sauce and the City (Mar 31, 1999)
- Sea What I Mean (Mar 24, 1999)
- Ravioli Rock (Mar 17, 1999)
- River Reverie (Mar 10, 1999)
- The Street Within (Mar 3, 1999)
- A Walleye's Eyes (Feb 24, 1999)
About Dara Moskowitz
From the Archive
- Swedish Roulette (Eaters' Digest - Apr 14, 1999)
- Tea and Chromosomes (Eaters' Digest - Apr 7, 1999)
- Sauce and the City (Eaters' Digest - Mar 31, 1999)
- Sea What I Mean (Eaters' Digest - Mar 24, 1999)
- Ravioli Rock (Eaters' Digest - Mar 17, 1999)
- River Reverie (Eaters' Digest - Mar 10, 1999)
- The Street Within (Eaters' Digest - Mar 3, 1999)
- A Walleye's Eyes (Eaters' Digest - Feb 24, 1999)
- More articles from the Dara Moskowitz Archive...
