Cultural Cuisine: Crêpes

By Grant Moore

This week in the Wood Hill Gazette, we are featuring a new section for Cultural Cuisine. Now, each week we will interview students around the school for their cultures cooking recipes and ideas. Cultural cuisine will also have a little history lesson right before each recipe! It will also include what might happen on weeks to come. We want all types of recipes from the simplest to the most complicated.

We want to know other cultures food, not just the boring normal food like a hamburger or a chicken wing. The Wood Hill Gazette wants to see interesting food from all countries like Germany, China, Italy, Sweden, South Korea, Japan, France, Canada, America, England, Ireland, Denmark, Russia, Mexico, and all the rest. We hope to put your family’s cultural cooking recipes in the Wood Hill Gazette this week, and weeks to come!

For our first weeks recipe, we will have a recipe from the author of this article, me, Grant Moore. I love the idea of French cooking; flavorful, elegant, and most of all, delicious! I will have a recipe on crêpes. The history of crêpes goes back to the 1100’s. Crêpes were invented in a place called Brittany [brit-n-ee] that is located in the Northwest region of France. That century, buckwheat was introduced to Brittany. Buckwheat is one of the key ingredients in buckwheat flour, which is used to make crêpes and is also used to make pancakes and other foods like that. Buckwheat is not a wheat, it is a seed. It is also gluten free! The word “crêpes” is derived from the Latin crispus meaning “curled”. Crêpes can be curled and rolled. I like to put Nutella in my crêpes, and then dress it in whipped cream and maple syrup. This recipe is sure to make your mouth water. Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:
1 cup cold water
1 cup cold milk
4 eggs
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups flour
4 Tbs melted butter
A rubber scraper

Making the Crêpes:
After finding the ingredients you need, put the liquids, eggs and salt into an electric blender. Add the flour, then the butter. Cover the blender and blend it at top speed for 1 minute. This recipe should make 25 to 30 crêpes if you make each one 6 to 6 ½ inches in diameter, to make half, put half of each ingredient in the blender. Take a skillet or pan that is 1 inch larger in diameter than the crêpe, rub butter on the pan or skillet, and pour an amount of the batter equalling the directed diameter onto the pan or skillet. Put the pan or skillet on a stove and put on medium heat and wait until the pan or skillet is just beginning to smoke then take the crêpe off. Finally, the crêpe should be all set and ready to eat. But don't forget to roll those crêpes!

Recipe Facts

• To test if your crêpes will be light and thin, like they should be, you can use the first crêpe as a test subject.
• Crêpes can also be used as a lunch, also known as a savory crêpe. Instead of stuffing the crêpes with strawberries, Nutella or whipped cream, you can stuff them with ham, cheese or turkey.
• A lot of the times people forget to put the top on the blender…

[Recipe from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”]