Waffling on about wafers

 

This post is a bit of a follow on from my previous post listing medieval and renaissance wafer recipes. In this article I will provide a modern wafer recipe that I have developed, and background information on wafers that I have gleaned. 

Because I get really irritated by blogs that have pages and pages of info before you get to the recipe, I am going straight to the recipe, and then you can read on as you wish. The recipe is from Le Menagier de Paris.

Recipe

1 egg

1/2 cup wine

1/2 cup flour

generous pinch of salt

When are they from?

Now, there is a really good question, which sadly I cannot provide a definitive answer to! The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America says that wafers “date back to ancient Greece, where they made obelios, a flat cake cooked between two hot metal plates.”
The earliest image I have spotted so far is from the Velislav Picture Bible (between 1325 and 1340)

What are they made of?

The basic wafer is pretty simple: flour, eggs, wine, salt.
But... you could get fancy, such as by stuffing them with cheese or adding ginger to the paste. Saffron wafers are mentioned in royal accounts from medieval Poland.
By the late 16th or early 17th century they might contain sugar and flavourings such as rose-water and cinnamon. A set of books in Gent, Belgium (bound together as one) dating from about 1560 has recipes that are made using white bread crumbs instead of flour.

What tool is used to make them?

A wafer iron just like this! -------------->

They did come in different shapes and sizes (including round), but this picture is quite a typical example of a medieval or renaissance wafer iron.
As you can see in this picture, there are two different sides. From my travels and research, they always seem to have two different sides in the medieval period – modern ones don't always. If you would like to see more examples of wafer irons, visit: www.larsdatter.com

When in the meal were they eaten?

They appear to have been served quite late in the meal, both in England and in France, and it seems, always with hippocras! There is a theory that they are a sort of final blessing at the end of the meal.
In Le Menagier de Paris (1393) the author gives details of the arrangements for two wedding feasts that include wafers. In both he lists them as being right towards the end of service, which goes in essentially this order:

• Service (butter, little pastries and fresh fruit)
• Pottages
• Roasts with sauces
• Entremets (jellied meats)
• Dessert (NOTE: not as we know it: frumenty, venison, pears and nuts)
• Issue: hippocras and wafers
• Boute-hors (translates literally as bottle out): spiced wine

Over the sea in England John Russell writes in about 1440ⁱ& þañ with goddes grace þe fest wille be do.

Blaunderelle, or pepyns, with arawey in confite,

Waffurs to ete / ypocras to drynk with delite.

now þis fest is fynysched / voyd þe table quyte

This basically says that after you have eaten the wafers and drunk the hippocras, you should leave the table.

How many wafers did people eat?

For the wedding feast Master Helye gave on a Tuesday in May for 40 people, altogether they ordered 18 stuffed wafers, 18 gros bastons, 18 portes, 18 estriers and a hundred sugared galettes.ⁱⁱ The final negotiation with the pastrycooks however, provided for 4 wafers for each guest.
It is worth noting that the gros bastons were the most expensive – I wonder if this is because they were simply larger, or perhaps were filled with something?
On the hippocras front: Le Menagier notes that two quarts of Hippocras was considered too much for a party of 14 guests: - a half pint between three people was considered to be sufficient.

Who made them?

Wafers appear to have been made by specialised Pastrycooks.  In France they were known as Obloyeurs (Oubloier - also spelled Oubloiier in medieval French or Obloyeurs) or Gauffriers – specialist wafer makers. 

Whats in a name?

There are a LOT of names for wafers, depending on the country, the period and the form. The earliest name appears to be the Ancient Greek obleios. This appears to have turned into oublies, and the name gaufre first seems to appear in the 13th century, from the Old French wafla, meaning “a piece of honeybee hive” (a reference to the honeycomb shaped pattern).In le Menagier de Paris (1393) for example, the author refers to Oubloie, gauffres, sweet Galettes, Supplications, Estriers and Portes, but I don't know for certain whether these are other names for the same or different wafers, or some other pastry item. I do have some theories about some of these.

For example because Porte is a medieval French word for a gate or portcullis, perhaps it was specifically a wafer using a wafer iron with a classic grid pattern. It is just a theory mind you!

A bit of research has a 1609 Castellan 'dictionary' describing oblea (the Spanish version of our Oubloie above) as “a leaf of very thin dough, and when made into tubes they are called supplicaciones”. So I feel it seems likely that our Gros Baston are referred to also as supplications. Phew, this is both exciting and tiring stuff to research!  In Germany they have oblaten which appear to be smooth wafers, and are probably related also to our oubloie.

16th century wafer iron - Switzerland