Everyday Man: Pancakes (Mancakes?)

photo by Alan Walker

Masculinity often focuses on the once in a lifetime stuff. Great men are presidents, generals who win decisive battles, thought leaders who come up with one amazing theory, and athletes who win the big game and set the big record. While we admit that nobody says on their death bed that they wish they'd spent more time at work, somehow all that gets lost in the everyday as even those who have enough accept more money to take on the harder job and spend more time working.




Part of what women perfected over the course of eons was living for today. That didn't mean going bungee jumping, or checking things off their bucket list. After all, the bucket list is simply another way of living for the future by saying, "these are the things I want to do before I die." Living for today means making pancakes for breakfast, not because it's a special occasion, but because when we make pancakes we take care of ourselves and the people we love.

After several years of making pancakes at least one hundred times a year, I have learned from my fore mothers and put together a delicious, healthy, everyday pancake recipe that you can make in 20 minutes for a family of four. The ingredients are listed below.

food production as women's work

Putting together these pancakes is more than just providing a substantive meal for my family, it is a meditation in the things that so many boys never get to learn. It's been called "learned helplessness," but it's more than the fact that college kids don't know how to arrange their lives in a healthy and organized manner. It is the forgetting of feminine knowledge. In a few short generations, we have handed over much of our women's work, like preparing food, hosting friends and family, and repairing our clothes to agribusiness, the internet, and the garment industry. When we do this, we trade satisfying tasks considered feminine, for masculine tasks that are repetitive, abusive and undervalued. This lost knowledge is taking its toll on our diets, our environment, our pocket books, and our mental and emotional health. One major flaw with "Lean In"-style feminism is the failure to recognize the value of traditionally women's work, like making pancakes.

food production as masculine labor

As I briefly mentioned in the last blog, pay equity is a very masculine way of looking at gender equality. It is an important index, but other indices, such as time spent with one's children, health of one's domestic sphere, and closeness and number of friendships are harder to calculate, and have not been the focus of modern feminists. It is no accident that pancakes have not been the primary worry of feminists. But when feminists emphasize equality in the spheres of politics and labor to the exclusion of traditionally feminine areas, they allow extreme masculinity to dictate the terms of the movement. By contrast, the basic tenant of masculine liberation is that feminine knowledge is inherently valuable as it is, not because the masculine marketplace acknowledges its value monetarily, but because things like domestic labor and deep loving friendships are valuable in themselves for both men and women.

So, regardless of whether you are a man, a woman, or neither, take a few moments to liberate yourself a little by connecting with your friends and family over a delicious homemade (not from a box) pancake breakfast. It will be worth it.

Gather all of your implements and ingredients before you start cooking. Put your griddle over the stove at the low end of medium. You'll have to figure out the temperature yourself, but because the structure of this particular pancake batter is so robust, you have quite a lot of room for error. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and sugar, then use the whisk to mix together the applesauce, milk, eggs, and oil in a separate bowl. Mix the liquid into the dry ingredients with a fork or spatula at first, but finish mixing with the whisk. Add milk one tablespoon at a time until the batter oozes through the whisk. See the video below to see a good consistency.

If you want to add ingredients, like chopped up apples and cinnamon, or dried cherries, add them at the end. Use your 1/2 cup measuring cup to pour the batter onto the griddle and flip after about three minutes. If you want, you can keep them warm in an oven at 180 for up to 30 minutes. Eat up and enjoy often.

Using the applesauce and white whole wheat flour makes these pancakes low calorie, moist, fluffy, and delicious, but you can trade up the applesauce and milk for buttermilk, and the flour for all-purpose if you want them fluffier for a special occasion.

When you buy pancake mix, you are paying factories money to mix the dry ingredients together, and maybe add some powdered egg, milk, and preservatives. It is less healthy, but more importantly, it is outsourcing the everyday stuff of life that makes us all happier. Enjoy your pancakes. Taste the liberation.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 tablespoons of sugar
8 ounces of applesauce
10 ounces of milk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of canola oil

tools needed:
a stove top or hot plate
a plate to put the dirty implements on
1 .5 cup measuring cup
1 tablespoon
2 mixing bowls
1 whisk
1 stirring spoon or spatula
1 cast iron pan or griddle, or any non-stick pan
1 large spatula to flip the pancakes