re: Pannekoeken page 2

By the way, since the mid-1990s spelling reform, it's pannenkoek and pannenkoeken. I found it amazing that spelling reformers would deliberately insert silent letters into the middle of words, but it's a grammatical thing. (Kinda like trade union, trades union.)

Not so strange.
The (not always entirely silent) middle n did exist already. It presence or absence was determined by a simple rule, albeit one with a lot of exceptions.
Depending on plural or singular mostly.
Ex: It was 'paardevlees' (horse meat) since it is meat from one horse, but 'bonensoep' (bean soup) since many beans go in.

In 1996 almost all words of this type acquired a middle n, plural or not, which supposedly simplified the rules. However, the new rules have exceptions too,
of at least equal complication.
You cannot add middle n-s blindly.
Ex: it still is a 'nachtegaal' (nightingale), not a nachtengaal.

The 1996 change is a perfect example
of how not to change the spelling.
The changes were prepared in secret, by a small committee, without adequate public discussion.
When they became public a discussion about the many inconsistencies in the proposal was no longer possible,
since the printing orders for word lists, dictionaries etc were already given.
The trouble is that Belgians are in on it too,
and by treaty with Belgium (taalverdrag)
the spelling changes are decreed by the crown,
(actually the minister responsible for education)
without the possibility of a parliamentary debate. The respective parliaments have given up their rights.

It was a relatively minor change, btw.
Jan

My question is, first, if you have eaten pannekoeken in your area and if so, what country are youwriting from were they baked in an oven and second, if you live in Belgium or the Netherlands (hi, Donna!), are pannekoeken ever baked in the oven there?

At the waterfront Pannekoekhuis at Kijkduin
(suburb of The Hague, Netherlands) I think all
pancakes are prepared in the oven.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)

At my mother's house in Leerdam, Z.H. in the 1950s, they were made in a stove-top frying pan. It was a large kitchen stove that burned coal and wood and it had an oven, but it was never used for pannekoeken.

I baked them on the stove top myself after we had moved to Canada and I grew up enough to realize cooking was a good thing. They're wonderful for breakfast with Canadian bacon embedded in them, topped with maple syrup.
Until recently, it had not dawned on me that you could make them any other way than on the stove top.
I wonder whether oven-baking is a labour-saving measure used by restaurants, since stove-top baking (frying?) requires constant attention to get just the right amount of scorch on the pannekoek, while oven-baking, once you have the time and temperature variants figured out, presumably does not.
It also seems to me that stove-top and oven-baked pannekoeken are not quite the same product. The pannekoeken sold in our local Vancouver, B.C. restaurant chain De Dutch Pannekoek House are oven-made, I believe, and they are larger and thicker than the ones my mother used to make, which were more like French-style crepes.
bill

writing At the waterfront Pannekoekhuis at Kijkduin (suburb of The Hague, Netherlands) I think all pancakes are prepared in the oven.

At my mother's house in Leerdam, Z.H. in the 1950s, they were made in a stove-top frying pan. It was ... and they are larger and thicker than the ones my mother used to make, which were more like French-style crepes.

I am glad you chose the word "bake" in the stove-top method. While we use skillets, frying pans, griddles, pancakes in the American way are actually slow-cooked with little grease (baked) (at least in my experience). Some cookbooks even call this baking.
I have only tasted the Minnesota "pannekoeken" one time, on a trip to the Twin Cities. I liked the product just fine, but thought of them as very fluffy, sweet and overworked. I like my pancakes served with a topping of 1 or 2 basted eggs, preferably with some bacon on the side, and, if possible, a small cup of bacon grease (besides the butter). (Usually 2 cakes a short stack.)

In another newsgroup, I've been involved in a discussion with a poster from Belgium about the nature of "pannekoeken." I stated that pannekoeken are oven-baked pancakes, and as a result are lighter than ordinary pancakes. He insisted that pannekoeken are not oven-baked.

Pannekoeken were my Dad's forte when I was a lad - he didn't cook much but certain things were his responsibility - including pannekoeken (as well oliebollen and sûkerbôlle, but that's another story)
These were inevitably fried in a skillet to get just the right degree of browning on both sides. One at a time, they were then stacked on a plate on top of a pan of boiling water to keep the whole pile hot until sufficient were ready to serve the assembled company simultaneously.
But these were skinny things - closer to a crepe than what I get served as a "pancake" in America. Like crepes, they could be served with either savory or sweet fillings (bacon, apples, strawberry jam) but unlike crepes, they did not have a smooth monochromatic surface. Ideally they had what looked like age spots where a bubble in the batter had blistered and been burned ever so slightly.

I don't think I ever saw an "oven baked" pancake until I migrated to Leftpondia.
Jitze

The trouble is that Belgians are in on it too, and by treaty with Belgium (taalverdrag) the spelling changes are decreed by the crown, (actually the minister responsible for education) without the possibility of a parliamentary debate. The respective parliaments have given up their rights.

So are the Belgians (and other final-n-pronouncing Dutch speakers) supposed to pronounce the newly inserted "n" in Pannenkoek?

Am I right in thinking that they pronounce the "n" in "bonensoep"?

Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.

NB mail to my.spamtrap (at) verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.

The trouble is that Belgians are in on it too, ... parliamentary debate. The respective parliaments have given up their rights.

So are the Belgians (and other final-n-pronouncing Dutch speakers) supposed to pronounce the newly inserted "n" in Pannenkoek?

No, spelling change is supposed not to influence pronunciation. That is a point spelling reformers (of the phonetic kind) tend to overlook: spelling does have an influence back on pronunciation, in the longer run.
For panne(n)koek it will make no difference. But in the sarcastic quote by Kousbroek (one of the most outspoken critics of the changes) I gave the n in 'ruggengraat' is very much pronounced.

Am I right in thinking that they pronounce the "n" in "bonensoep"?

Some do, most do not. But there is a spectrum,
and even in native speakers who do not pronounce the n the pronunciation of bonensoep would be different from what they would say when you tell them to say bonesoep, with deliberate non-pronunciation of the n. The emphasis would change.

Jan

"Zij hebben geen ruggengraat" (Rudy Kousbroek)

I am glad you chose the word "bake" in the stove-top method. While we use skillets, frying pans, griddles, pancakes in the American way are actually slow-cooked with little grease (baked) (at least in my experience). Some cookbooks even call this baking.

From Dutch 'bakken' of course.
And 'bakken' is the only way you can make a 'pannekoek' in Dutch, there is no other word for it.
Jan

In another newsgroup, I've been involved in a discussion with ... than ordinary pancakes. He insisted that pannekoeken are not oven-baked.

Pannekoeken were my Dad's forte when I was a lad - he didn't cook much but certain things were his responsibility - including pannekoeken (as well oliebollen and sûkerbôlle, but that's another story)

Suikerbollen, in Dutch.

These were inevitably fried in a skillet to get just the right degree of browning on both sides. One at ... pan of boiling water to keep the whole pile hot until sufficient were ready to serve the assembled company simultaneously.

And if he was good at it he would have shown of by turning over the 'pannekoeken' in the air, throwing them up and catching them again with the skillet, with no more than a quick flick of the wrist. For lesser mortals there is a special tool, a 'pannekoekenmes', a thin flexible steel blade (about 4 * 25 cm) with a wooden handle.

Jan