Pancake Travels

My pancake travels now take me all the way from the Caribbean to northwest Africa.  I will say that my journey to discover pancakes in Africa has been a big challenge thus far.  I was unable to find a recipe for the last African country I visited.  I feared the same might be true for Benin, but I eventually stumbled upon (no, not my new addiction stumble upon , I literally stumbled upon it through old fashioned web searching) a website called Food and Cooking in Benin from the University of Pennsylvania.  Here I discovered that they eat a food for breakfast called akara in Benin.  Next I searched for akara recipes, and I discovered they are a bean type of pancake (because black eyed peas are really a type of bean and not a pea).  Alright!  Now we have a name to search for a recipe.  Well, the only akara recipes I was able to find were for Nigeria.  I decided to go ahead and make the Nigerian akara recipe since they border each other.  ...

My next country is Belize.  Knowing that Belize is a Caribbean country, I expected to have a more exotic country as I left Western Europe and traveled to the warmer Caribbean climate.  I wasn't disappointed.  The main ingredient for the Belizean pancake is cassava.  Other common names for the cassava here in the U.S.A. are yuca and tapioca.  Finding a recipe for the Belizean pancake was not difficult; however, finding the cassava was.  Armed with the knowledge of the various names for this root vegetable, I began my hunt for the elusive root.  First I searched the web.  I went to various grocery store websites to see if they might have them, but I didn't have much luck finding it.  I decided I should start calling some, so starting with Ralphs, the grocery store closest to me (yes, I was feeling lazy and didn't want to drive any further than I had to).  First phone call, no luck.  Next I tried Trader Joe's, again, no luck.  On ...

Once again I find myself behind in blogging about pancakes.  This time I can't blame my hubby though, he's been very good about moving the pictures from the SD card to my computer's hard drive.  I think this time it is because school started back up, and I had to go back to work full time for the first time in 4 years.  It's tough getting used to working full time! Anyway, I find myself back in Western Europe as I make a stop in Belgium.  I will say that it was tough finding a recipe for Belgian pancakes.  All of the recipes I kept pulling up were for Belgian waffles.  I did discover a few things about Belgian waffles in my research though.  I discovered that Belgians don't eat Belgian waffles for breakfast as we do here in the States.  Instead they eat them as a snack or dessert.  Also, what we Americans call a Belgian waffle is actually unknown in Belgium.  In Belgium there are three types of waffles that are eaten, the Brussels waffle...