I AM FROM A FAILURE TO MAKE PANCAKES
From age 11 to age 13, I spent two weeks every summer at Boy Scout camp. I loved Boy Scout camp. It was my first experience away from home without my parents. It was "hanging out" with my friends. It was proving myself against the elements. It was about challenging myself by having to swim across the lake. I loved everything about going to camp----well, almost everything. I didn't like pancakes.
Now I am not talking about the pancakes they served for breakfast in the mess tent. Heck no, those were great. Big heaping stacks of them, smothered with maple syrup with a strip of bacon floating in the syrup; a great way to start a day.
No, the pancakes I am talking about are the ones I had to make to earn my cooking merit badge. Those pancakes were the pancakes from hell. The preparation of those pancakes and their presentation as something edible were the source of humiliation and despair.
You wouldn't think that pancakes would be that hard to prepare. I'm certain the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America, in making the cooking of pancakes a prerequisite for the cooking merit badge did not gather in a room, laughing maniacally, and select pancakes because they would present an insurmountable challenge to young men in their formative years. There was a time when I thought that might be the case, but now, with the perspective of years, I am almost confident that was not the case. The making of pancakes was supposed to be easy.
Well, easy but not for an 11-year boy of Greek descent. I mean GREEK, do you get it? Those people owned restaurants, for goodness sake! What kind of Greek can't cook a freakin' pancake?
In order to earn the merit badge, you had three chances to prepare the batter and cook the pancake. Three chances to cook the perfect pancake. Okay, it didn't even have to be perfect. But, in the end, it did have to resemble a pancake.
So now I must confess the ultimate humiliation. I failed to earn my cooking merit badge not only at age 11, but also at age 12 and also...but I get ahead of myself here.
Now many of you will not truly understand the complexity of making pancakes at camp. First of all, one had to build a fire. Fortunately, we could use matches and didn't have to rub two sticks together...which I still think would have been easier than making the pancake
Once the fire was built, one had to use that little metal pan that came as part of your mess kit. The mess kit was no larger than two pie tins placed together face to face. But it was a wondrous feat of engineering and packaging because it included the aforementioned fry pan, a plate, a bowl, a cup, and utensils all neatly fitted together and
stored in a drab green purse-like contraption with a should strap. The shoulder strap was there so it could, of course, be carried on hikes into some God-forsaken wilderness where there were bears. There was one point, during my cooking merit badge experience when I thought: "Why should I make a darn pancake. The bears will smell them and come out of the woods in all directions to get my pancakes." Well, probably not MY pancakes.
Anyway, with my fire built (no problem) and my cooking pan on standby, it was time to make the pancake batter. And this was no pre-mixed batter that came out of an Aunt Jemima box. No, this was flour and water, for which apparently, there was a science to discovering the proper combination. In college, years later, I was not very successful in chemistry lab, probably because of my earlier traumatic experiences mixing the ingredients for my pancake batter. I think there might have been an egg thrown in there and perhaps some butter. My memory fails me now as to the precise ingredients, but I do know that even when one follows directions to the letter, the consistency of those ingredients could vary widely. Sometimes it was as thick as hour old oatmeal and at other times it resembled lumpy soup. Rarely, however, did it resemble pancake batter.
Working with batter of various consistencies and composition, I would pour it into the pan, which had been heating on the fire. Therein lies another, as I later discovered, crucial aspect to official pancake preparation. Do NOT overheat your pan prior to
introducing the pancake batter regardless of batter consistency. See, now, why didn't they put that simple instruction in the book? How's an 11-year-old boy supposed to know THAT! Well, let's just say that I learned that over time----after time after time.
There was another traumatic aspect to the pancake making process. At some point, God knows when, the pancake is ready to be flipped over. And the flipping had to be done with a fork or a knife because, though their motto is "Be Prepared", real Boy Scouts did not carry spatulas in their mess kits. Now why wouldn't the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America include a spatula in your mess kit if they KNEW you were going to be asked to flip a pancake? The meeting where they decided not to include the spatula provoked more maniacal laughter, I am certain.
Turning over lumpy soup with a fork is not easy. But neither is turning over hour old oatmeal that is firmly stuck to the bottom of an overheated fry pan. The resulting product looked much more like scrambled eggs----which would have been a snap to make---than pancakes. The counselors who were to approve of our efforts looked at my "pancake" with a mixture of horror and pity. And apparently, when you mix those emotions, it comes out as suppressed laughter.
After year one, the cooking merit badge was not to be mine. In school, I was a very good student. As a Boy Scout, I had earned more than my fair share of merit badges.
Pancakes were my earliest failure. Most of my companions at camp had easily passed the pancake preparation prerequisite and earned their cooking badges. What was WRONG with me? How could Louie Matthias, not the brightest bulb in the box, cook a pancake and I fail so miserably? What secret pancake knowledge did he possess th0T did not? I
left camp that year thinking my pancake experience was simply a fluke. I knew, when I returned the following year, the cooking merit badge would be mine.
Unfortunately, year two turned out to be much like year one when it came to mastering the multitude of skills involved in pancake prep. I can proudly say that my batter was the best in camp. The perfect consistency, like silk flowing out of the bowl. My pan was the perfect temperature, not over heated, and not under heated. Just perfect. In went the mixture, sizzle went the pan. All was going according to plan. Until. Until it was time to turn the cursed thing over without the spatula. More scrambled eggs. But with bigger chunks.
After my first effort in year two failed, I was shaken. No, I thought, not again. I became too self-conscious. It was like watching your feet when you're running down the stairs; you're sure to trip. My next two efforts were also failures. One side golden brown and the other burned to a crisp. I actually turned that one over and then, in my moment of pride, forgot to pay attention to how long it was in the pan. Well, you can't blame me for watching too long. After all, it was the first time I had gotten the thing turned over.
As it turned out, getting it turned over must have been a bit of good luck because on the third try, it wasn't scrambled eggs....it was more like an omelet. I got it halfway turned over before the entire enterprise collapsed upon itself. I was improving, but, for a second year, the cooking merit badge eluded me. Now I did not just fail, I "regularly" failed at something. I couldn't DO it. That was a very unusual experience for me. There were, of course, many things I couldn't do as well as others, but I could make a passable effort at it. Many boys, for example, were better at basketball and baseball but I could learn the rules and play the game fairly well. But, as my life at Boy Scout camp was teaching me, basketball ain't pancakes.
In year 3 of Boy Scout camp, I was 13. I had collected more than enough merit badges. But there was one badge---only one----that I REALLY wanted. And, since my Boy Scout career was nearly over, it was now or never. Back to the campfire I went. I can still see the setting as vividly as if I were there now. Eight small campfire stations, a medium sized rock beside each campfire to sit upon, and seven prepubescent eleven-year-olds and me. I felt like that kid Jeremy Ellis who was 18 years old and in my seventh-grade home room class.
I am nothing if not stubborn when it comes to persevering at something I cannot do. My 30-year interest in golf is true testament to that fact. So I tried again. Trial one: failure. Still a problem with the flipping process. I must have had a look of complete despair on my face because one of the counselors came over and asked me what the problem was. "I just don't know how to turn over this pancake", I responded. "Here, let ate watch' what you are doing", he said and knelt by my rock.
I steadied myself and prepared another batch of batter. "No problem there", he said. I poured the mixture into the pan. "Pan's not too hot" he said. Then we watched the pan
together. I reached my fork in to turn it over and he said, "whoa, not yet". I looked at him and asked: "How do you know that?"
"That's easy, there's no bubbles at the edges. Didn't anybody tell you about that? They're supposed to tell you that the first time you try?"
"WHAT? Bubbles, what bubbles?
He pointed at the pan and at the edges of the pancake and said: "Those bubbles. When you see those bubbles, it's time to turn the pancakes over. If it's not bubbling it's too soon and if it stops bubbling, it's too late."
WHAT! NO, no one told me THAT.
Well, since I helped you this time, it won't count so let's see what you can do on your own on your third try."
Are you kidding me? There absolutely WAS a pancake secret, and I had not known it. On my third try, in my third year, the batter was perfect, the pan was perfect, the bubbles appeared, the flip over was a breeze and I had my cooking merit badge.
I learned a lot from that experience. Good teachers are indispensable. In addition, perseverance by itself is not enough; having the correct information is crucial to success. And, in retrospect, I now know there are lots of pancake failures in life. And most of them are because we didn't know to wait for the bubbles.
