No. That is NOT how you cook them!

[neadods]

Ever since I discovered that American iTunes has BBC 4 podcasts, I've been doing more or less the audio equivalent of stripping down and rolling around naked in them, luxuriating in the wide variety and the options.

Until a certain episode of "Cook the Perfect..."

The first problem is the same one all of them have; it's an audio description of a visual experience. Not too bad when you can look up a photo online, but when cooking it's necessary to know what the speaker means by "a little flour."

The episode that undid me was Cook the Perfect American Pancakes. Now, I didn't know until Gally of last year that there was a difference in pancakes between the US & the UK. "Fake Keith" described British pancakes as thin and flat, while the ultimate accolades for pancakes in these parts is "fluffy and buttery."

The speaker in "Cook the Perfect..." dealt with this by using what sounded suspiciously like the British recipe, only separating the eggs and whipping the whites to get the loft, and... no. Just no. Yeah, it will rise and it should taste more or less OK, but that is most emphatically not a proper American pancake, much less a perfect one! We, depending on the recipe and the region, use baking powder, baking soda, or even ginger ale to get that loft and you know the right time to flip it because the bubbles stop rising to the surface you're looking at. Egg whites don't bubble.

The icon is me having a bit of a lie down to get over the shock.


(Look, it was either rant over pancakes or guns and/or the Presidential race. Either way, I feel better for a bit of strop.)

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That sounds kind of good, actually. Whereas ours are solidly breakfast food -- eggs, meat, and pancakes are kind of the "Full American" version of the Full English.

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

They're yummy! More like dessert, though, or festival food - served with loads of sweet fillings like chocolate spread. I have had savoury ones, but that was my mother stuffing them with vegetables and serving them with a cheese sauce as vegetarian food.

I was trying to explain to an American in the writing group the other day that pancakes aren't typical breakfast food in the UK!