National Waffle Day is an unofficial holiday which is celebrated annually on August 24th. It was on this day in 1869 that the first United States patent for a waffle iron was issued to Cornelius Swartwout.
While a variety of different hot cakes made of cereal pulps were made for hundreds of years, it wasn’t until the 1st century that the modern waffle began to take shape. This is when the Greeks used two large irons to make hot, flat cakes. The early hot cakes were savory and not usually sweet. Around the 9th century, these early waffles would eventually evolve into communion wafers. However, these early communion waffles didn’t have the honeycomb patterns.
Today, there are a variety of different waffles and thanks to the mass production of waffle irons, they can be produced in an almost infinite number of sizes and shapes. There are even novelty waffle irons in which people can make Star War’s Death Star Waffles, Charlie Brown Waffles, Mickey Mouse Waffles, Emoji Waffles, Super Hero Waffles and even Hello Kitty Waffles.
- Thomas Jefferson brought a waffle iron to the U.S from France
- Waffles were used as the first ice cream cone at the World’s Fair of 1904 in St. Louis, Mo.
- E. invented the electric waffle iron in 1911 but didn’t sell it until 1918
- Waffle comes from the Dutch word meaning “wafer.”
- In 1953, Eggo introduced frozen waffles
- The Waffle House was founded in 1955
- The soles of Nike’s first pair of sneakers were made with a waffle iron
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