Belgian waffles developed so quickly that the renowned marchands d’oublies merchants sold their products both on the streets and outside the city walls.
Lucrative business
For the religious celebration or St. Valentine’s days, the waffle merchants were allowed to sell their waffles at the outposts of the churches, of course, after paying the clergy’s reward.
Year after year, wafer manufacturers – who were mostly men – produced and sold wafers in bulk, leading to many battles and problems among vendors.
Finally, King Charles IX (king of France between 1560 and 1574) decides to regulate this lucrative business. The distance between the merchants’ stalls was supposed to be more than 6 feet.
In the sixteenth century, waffles were not just a delicacy. In most cases, they were prepared when there was a shortage of bread. Raw materials for waffle were mainly water and bad flour – mixed with barley, buckwheat, rye. The walnuts were peeled with walnut oil. Less heat was required to prepare them – once heated, the cast iron waffle maker kept the temperature for a long time. It was possible to bake many waffles with minimal maintenance heat.
Potatoes
In the eighteenth century, bad flour was replaced with potatoes. These waffles for ordinary people were thick with bad taste, while the middle-class waffles were thin with eggs, milk, honey. The waffles that were made were unleavened.
The wafers have become famous all over Europe and even in America.
Known around the world
In the Czech and Slovak republics, in the 18th century, sweets were made that looked like big waffles and were called “obaltky” or “oplatky”. Honey-filled foods were consumed on the eve of Christmas in Slovakia. In the Czech Republic, oplatky became known as “bathing wafers” because they were sold in the water resorts of Karlsbad and Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad).
Belgian waffles are very popular
Belgian waffles are very popular in Belgium – known as gaufre or gauffre in French, and in Flemish – like wafel, waffel or suikerwaffel.
Today in Belgium, you can find waffles throughout the year in the bakeries and in the big chain stores.
In North America, the word waffle is derived from the Dutch wafel, and was first published in English in 1735. They were imported by settlers who had spent some time in the Netherlands before sailing to America in 1762. Thus wafers became popular in America in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s founding fathers, came back from Europe with an iron robe, a long handle and honeycomb type after his visit to France in 1790.
In 1869, American Cornelius Schwarthauer of New York received a US patent for a Waffle. In the United States, on 24 August, the so-called “Waffle” Day is celebrated – the anniversary of the receipt of this patent. American waffles are made with soda bicarbonate instead of yeast.
World Fair in Brussels
Morris Vermersch and his wife, from Brussels, tried to roast wafers with yeast in cast-iron pans topped with lard. Their friends and relatives were so pleased with the result that Vermersches presented them at the 1960 World Fair in Brussels, Belgium under the name of Brussels Waffles. The success that followed led Vermersches to open several restaurants specializing in the production and sale of waffles.
At the next world fair in 1964, this time in Queens, New York, Vermersches presented them as Belgian waffles, considering that most Americans, not knowing where Brussels was, called the Belgian waffles.
