Mirabile Roman Pancakes

By Zoe Carlson

My experience making roman pancakes with my friends was excellent. I will admit, my friends and I are definitely not chefs, so I was surprised how well they turned out even though they were just pancakes. The VCAM was stocked with all of the ingredients except for the yeast. So we went to the store to grab that. I had never seen Roman pancakes, or Tagenitai, before in real life so i didnt really know what to expect. Also, I have never really worked with yeast before so I was intrigued about that. I think the first mistake we made was that we did not mix the batter up nearly enough so there were little clumps of flour left in the mixture. We also were not the best at pouring the batter, but with every pancake, we improved the pancake. As the picture shows. It was crazy to see how much they improved once we finally got the timing down. Ileana and I’s friend, Rebbecca, who is taking your Latin course, taught us some Latin numbers as we were measuring. She also taught us how to say goldfish “Pisces aurei”. That was fun. She had a fun time learning about some of the Roman cultures, and she is looking forward to taking this course in the future. Also, we let some of our other friends, and even some random people that were sitting around the VCAM, try our finished product. After the chefs got to try it of course. Overall, the consensus was that it was extremely bland. It was not bad by any means but it did not have much flavor at all. I think if I ever were to do this again I would try to spice up the recipe by adding some flavors. Maybe some chocolate and syrup. Also, I would add a little less water than the recipe calls for. Because our pancakes were definitely on the runny side and that made it a lot harder to time when to flip them and made them some funky shapes. Overall it was a fun learning experience and I would definitely do it again.

• Dissolve the sugar in 100ml/3 fl oz of water.
• Add the dried yeast and leave for 15 minutes.
• Mix the yeast mixture into the flour, add salt to taste and the rest of the water. Stir until you have a smooth batter, then cover with cling film and allow to settle for one hour.
• Heat the oil in a frying pan.
• Starting from the centre and working outwards, Gradually pour a ladle of batter into the pan
• Fry until firm enough to turn over. Repeat the turning process to ensure the pancakes are cooked throughout and they are golden brown.
• Continue until all the batter has been used.
• Serve.

Ingredients 

• 200 g/7 oz wholemeal flour
• ½ litre/i pint warm water
• ½ t. dried yeast
• 1 t. sugar
• 1 t. salt
• Olive oil for frying