by Marianne Graff, Published on April 3, 2025
Photo credit: The History of Waffles by the History Guy – ancient art showing ‘obilios’, or a type of bread cooked between two plates over an open fire.
Despite the recent trendy interest in waffles around the world from street food to fine dining, you may be surprised to discover that waffles are not a new thing, and that they have been around for much longer than you probably realize.
While the exact origin of waffles and date they were invented is unknown, references to waffles date back to ancient Greece, according to ” A History of Waffles” by the History Guy channel. Ancient texts referred to cooking a flatbread called ‘ obilios’ cooked between two metal plates and to try to avoid getting burned by the fire while cooking them. over an open fire. Obilios were filled with cheese and herbs according to historical references. They also lacked a leavening agent and so were flatter and thinner than the thick waffles often cooked today.
The etymological root of the word ‘oblies’ is possibly ‘oble’, the name for a copper or small gold coin. Perhaps each flatbread sold for a small coin.
The other possible root of the word is ‘oblata’ which translates to ‘offering’ which more closely fits the use of wafers or ‘wafles’ for religious purposes during communion wafers eaten centuries later. The word ‘waffle’ is very close to the word ‘wafer’.
One story by goes that the bakery owner in Gouda thought waffles up as a way to use up unused ingredients and old bread. They were first considered a poor person’s snack, because they were so cheap that even those who could not afford to buy bread could afford waffles.
The Stroopwafle was more of a cookie than a meal, and the thin waffles were spread with a thin filling made of molasses that tasted like modern day caramel. Today the fillings can be peanut butter, chocolate, and even marshmallow cream. Recently they became an international sensation with the international coffee chain Starbucks selling them as a sweet option to go with their coffees.
Many food historians trace their appearance on the food scene back to a city in the Netherlands, to a bakery run by Mrs. Woltje, in Gouda. Different ways of preparing them in the Netherlands have also been traced back to Volendam and Amsterdam. This video depicts the history of the ‘wafel’ in the Netherlands including a tour of one of the Woltje Bakery that first made them using very hot cast iron plates with long handles that were put in a very hot oven for a minute each to cook.
According to the tour to Woltje’s Bakery, her original waffle recipe had six ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, yeast, milk and eggs.
Waffle Irons Over the Ages
Photo Credit: Antique Belgian Waffle Maker Restoration – I’m Making Flemish Waffles for You!
The original waffle irons were heavy, cast iron, long handled affairs, much like jaffle irons used by campers today. They made thin waffles, not thick waffles with deep pockets, otherwise known as the Belgium waffle, that most commonly pop to mind when people hear the word ‘waffle’ today.
Waffles also appeared in religious circles in the early 18th century since thin waffles were used as communion wafers. Fancy waffle irons were made that depicted different religious text and images representing different biblical stories.
Waffle Recipes
Recipes for waffles started appearing in Europe 300 years ago, according to Max Miller of Tasting History. Max Miller with Tasting History has connected the dots back to France. They cooked a flatbread between iron plates on a long stick as waffles, and the word ‘ gofre’ was used for this.
Max also found recipes that prove that some of the medieval waffles made for the middle class were not served with sweet drippy syrups, but with butter and a special kind of port wine sauce. He does a great deep dive into the history of waffles that features fascinating images and snippets of recipes of the original waffles including a close facsimile of that wine sauce used originally with waffles at parties.
Waffles and waffle irons came over to the Americas with the Puritans.
Over the decades that followed, they came in and out of fashion.
Fascinating Facts about Waffles
in 1774, ‘Waffle Frolic’ parties were popular, and the Senator of Missouri attended one.
In 1953 the Eggo company invented a way to mass produce them as a frozen food people could reheat in their toasters. Kellogs later bought this company in the 1970’s. Can you believe that in 2023, Kellogs sold 823 million dollar’s worth of frozen waffles? This was reported by The History Guy in his video The History of Waffles.
In 1973, Bill Bowerman the man who went on to start the shoe company ‘Nike’ was a cobbler who used his wife’s waffle maker to make the pattern to use to make the soles of shoes into a texture that could grip the ground more easily, according to ‘A History of Waffles’ by the History Guy.
Photo credit: A Hstory of Waffles by the History Guy. Shows the design of Nike brand running shoe soles made with a waffle iron
Official ‘Waffle Days’ around the World
March 25 -International Sweden, Denmark and Norway ( a religious day associated with the’Feast of Ascension’, and a word close to ‘verfuldoggen’ which sounds close to ‘wafledogen’ , and that became known as ‘waffle day’).
March 24th – National Waffle Day in the USA