By By Robert St. John / food columnist
July 30, 2003
Robert St. John is the executive chef/owner of the Purple Parrot Caf and Crescent City Grill in
Hattiesburg and Meridian. He can be reached at robert@nsrg.com or at (601) 264-0672.
I just ate a pancake on a stick.
That's it. As of this day, July 30, 2003, I am officially declaring our society too busy.
While waiting at the drive-through window of a fast-food chain, I noticed an advertisement for a pancake on a stick. Being of the culinarily curious variety, I vowed to return the following morning and order this gastronomic oddity.
The pancake on a stick looked like a corn dog. I assumed the cook had made a mistake and grabbed the wrong item. I don't know what I expected a pancake on a stick to look like, but it wasn't a corn dog.
I took a bite (without dipping it into the syrup) to make sure it was actually a pancake on a stick and not a corn dog. A corn dog dipped into maple syrup instead of mustard would present one of the biggest taste shocks in the history of eating.
Note: Taste shock is the phenomenon of tasting something entirely different than your brain was prepared for. Example: You think you are about to take a sip of Coke and it is milk. Yuck!
How did this happen?
Like the notorious corn dog, the pancake on a stick has a piece of pork stuck in the middle. Although, with the portable pancake, it's a breakfast-sausage link not a wiener. Sort of like a pig-in-a-blanket popsicle.
I began to wonder how the pancake on a stick was invented. Was someone eating at IHOP while pondering the fate of American breakfast fare?
It is ironic that the pancake on a stick is served at a drive-thru window. One would think that operating a 7,000-pound vehicle in heavy traffic while jamming a 6-inch wooden stick into your mouth would be dangerous. But nooooo, we're in a hurry, and we have to eat breakfast.
Weirder still
Even still, the pancake on a stick has to be safer than the beer-barn concept from the 1970s.
The Beer Barn, now there's a safe and well-thought-out business plan drive through a building, grab a quart of beer, drive off, drink the quart of beer on the way to the next beer barn and never leave the safety of your car. That is, until they pry your head from the dashboard using the Jaws of Life.
Could the creator of the beer barn and the inventor of the pancake on a stick be one and the same? Probably not, I imagine the guy who came up with the pancake on a stick is the same guy who developed soap on a rope.
Why did humankind ever need to put soap on a rope? Is our need for soap while in the shower so immediate that we don't have time to reach for the soap dish?
Does the bar of Irish Spring have to be hanging around our necks? Once again, another safe practice hanging a rope around your neck while standing on wet, slippery, soap-covered tiles.
So, the way I figure it, the soap-on-a-rope guy is sitting around watching his royalty fees dwindle. In his search for two more disparate items to pair together, he says, "I know. I'll put a pancake on a stick. That will keep them busy for a while."
Coming soon to your local fast food franchise pancake on a rope.
More blasphemy
God gave us many foods on a stick the aforementioned corn dog, popsicles, kabobs, lamb chops, drumsticks and chicken wings. It has been that way for thousands of years.
That is, until one of the chain restaurants came up with the ribs-without-the-rib creation. Blasphemous!
I want bones in my ribs. If I'm not mistaken, those are the same guys who developed Buffalo chicken wings without the wings.
If God had intended for chickens to live without bones in their wings, He would have given them two more drumsticks and had them walk on all fours. No one wants to see a bunch of floppy-winged and limp-wristed roosters running around the chicken pen.
Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. The fast food folks have already put french toast in a bag. What's next? Grits on a stick? Now there's a true taste shock.
Muz's Pancakes n The World's Best
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1⁄4 cup butter, melted (unsalted) plus additional melted butter
Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Add liquid ingredients, and stir until just incorporated. If you over work the batter the pancakes won't be light and fluffy. The batter is thick. It can be thinned with a small amount of water or a little more buttermilk.
Cook pancakes on a lightly greased griddle. Pancakes should only be turned once. They are ready to be turned when bubbles form in the middle and the edges appear cooked.
Once pancakes have been turned, take a pastry brush and spread the additional melted butter on top of the pancakes while the other side is cooking. They will already be buttered once they reach the table.