13 Jan 2012, Posted by admin in EAT + DRINK, 0 Comments

Fraise Friday: Or, More Fun With Medieval Pancakes

Fraise (or frawsey or froise) is “a Medieval term referring to something of the general nature of a pancake, made with batter and fried.” So begins Alan Davidson’s Penguin Companion to Food. And so begins, we can only hope, the weekend.

Fraise also means strawberry in French, or, according to good old Merriam-Webster, “an obstacle of pointed stakes driven into the ramparts of a fortification in a horizontal or inclined position.” Goodness. I’m going to have to side with the historic pancake version:

“Most versions were thick, and could incorporate small pieces of meat or bacon, vegetables, or fruits, sometimes with cream, ground almonds, or bread-crumbs, and usually sweetened. Sometimes the fillings were enclosed between two layers of batter; sometimes they were mixed in. Fraises survived into the 20th century, Later forms were almost all sweet, and were like fried or baked fruit batter puddings. See also tansy.”

Fraise. Or Fraise N’ Tansy. See, it even sounds like a pancake shop name. Now, all we need is the pancake shop.