Episode Details

In 1560, King Charles IX of France had to order waffle vendors to stay apart because they kept brawling over street corners. This episode traces the waffle from flat cakes the ancient Greeks cooked between hot metal plates, through medieval communion wafer irons and oublie makers, to spices brought back after the Crusades and a 14th-century Paris recipe with wine and cheese.

We explain how beer yeast in 16th-century Belgian recipes led to the deep grid, how the price of sugar made waffles a luxury and then nearly killed the trade, and how electric irons, Eggo's frozen waffles, and the 1964 World's Fair Bel-Gem waffle revived them. We also tour Vietnamese pandan waffles, Hong Kong egg waffles, Scandinavian heart waffles, Hawaii's waffle dog, the croffle, and waffle grids studied for heat sinks.

• Why French waffle vendors fought in the streets and needed a royal order to keep apart
• How beer yeast in a 16th-century Belgian recipe led to the deep-pocket grid
• How cheap beet sugar after the Napoleonic blockade made waffles lose their prestige
• How General Electric, the Dorsa brothers' Eggo, and the 1964 World's Fair revived waffles
• How Vietnam, Hong Kong, Scandinavia, and Hawaii each reinvented the waffle