This Side of the Pond

After all these years, you’d think there were few things left for me to discover about how differently our two nations utilize the same language. Trust me to find something new on Thanksgiving, when everyone was watching.

You might have noticed that last week was the big holiday. I know I did – I never pass up an opportunity for company potatoes.

In our family, this family gathering has been claimed by my sister-in-law. She is an excellent cook and terrifyingly organized, which means she pretty much has the menu and décor covered somewhere around July.

Shortly before the big day, she sends us all a text to make sure we know where we’re expected to be come Thursday morning. She lets us know that she doesn’t require assistance with the assortment of dishes, but we are welcome to bring along “anything we’d like to share”.

This leaves me in a quandary. For obvious reasons, I’m not the most practiced of Thanksgiving chefs. By the time I landed on these shores, holiday routines were set in stone and did not involve me going anywhere near a turkey.

I also don’t think I’d ever made a Thanksgiving-themed dish before I moved here, unless you count mashed potatoes and turkey. Even our stuffing is different – we use breadcrumbs instead of cubes, and the seasoning is much stronger, though usually still based on sage and onion.

On the other hand, my grandmother would turn in her grave at the suggestion I turn up without something to contribute. I’ve tried to take over the dishes in the past, but my brother-in-law quite literally chased me out of the kitchen.

I’ve taken wine, which went down well, and also cheesecake, which did not (there were already two pies and everyone was too full to eat them). I needed something that could be snacked on in the hours before the main meal was served, but that could potentially also be sent as travel sustenance with my niece when she heads back to UW.

A friend of mine recently gifted me a bag full of apples from her orchard, so I came up with a plan: I’d make a sweet treat beloved of the Brits that I’ve never seen on offer over here, but definitely fits with local tastes.

It’s a chewy dessert bar made with oats and syrup – and, in this case, apples. It’s similar to what you would refer to as a granola bar, but it’s called a flapjack.

I informed the husband of my choice and he nodded in agreement.

What I didn’t know was that he had no idea what I was talking about and based his consent on the fact that he generally likes British food and figured it would probably be fine.

I also didn’t know – and this became a problem when we discussed my plans in the office – that everyone else would assume I was planning to whip up a stack of pancakes.

The confusion of my colleagues was just as baffling to me. I couldn’t understand why they thought an apple-based oat bar was a strange thing to eat during the harvest season and they couldn’t understand why I’d think a pancake belonged on a snack tray just before the heaviest meal of the year.

When we eventually solved the conundrum, I felt what I can only describe as dismay. Why is a pancake called a flapjack? Whose idea was that?

Is this a case of America taking a look at our language and thinking, yeah, that’s a cool word and all, but I don’t like what it means?

As it turns out, you guys aren’t as far off as I thought, so I’m prepared to compromise. The word originates in the 1300s, when the “flap” part referred to a flat cake and to flipping something in the pan…much like a pancake, I get it.

The “jack” part was added three centuries later, it seems, and is Middle English for a “common fellow”, which is believed to refer to it being the snack of the everyday man, unadorned using simple ingredients that were easy to find.

The word appeared in the American dictionary in 1920 and referred to the morning snack to appease hunger. It seems to have always meant a pancake here, though at about the same time we were honing it down to specifically mean an oat bar in the UK.

If you’d like to experience a different kind of flapjack to the one you’re used to, here’s the recipe I made (you can halve the quantities if you just want enough for the family, rather than a holiday group).

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and butter the base of an eight-by-16 inch tin, then line it with parchment paper.

Peel and chop about six apples and place them in a saucepan with four teaspoons of water. Cook over a medium heat for four minutes, at which point the apples should be soft enough to crush but there’s still a little water in the pan.

Crush the apples with a fork to break them up slightly, then remove from the pan and set aside. Add 1.5 cups of butter, a cup of corn syrup and 1.5 cups of light brown sugar to the pan and warm until the butter is melted and the sugar has dissolved.

In a large bowl combine 6 2/3 cups of oats and a teaspoon of cinnamon, then add the apples and butter mix. Stir to combine, then tip the mixture into the tin and press down firmly.

Level the surface, then cook for up to half an hour. When it’s golden and the sides are bubbling, it’s ready. Cut into pieces, but allow it to cool completely before attempting to separate them as it will need some time to set. Store in an airtight container for up to three days.

I’m told by several reliable and very American sources that the result is worth the bite, whatever I choose to call them. Still not the most Thanksgiving dish in the recipe book, but at least I didn’t serve pancakes.