Crempog

Crempog

Crempog, made using the Anglesey recipe
Alternative names	Ffroes
Type	Pancake
Place of origin	Wales
Main ingredients	batter

Crempog (plural: crempogau) is a Welsh pancake made with flour, buttermilk, eggs, vinegar and salted butter. Traditionally made on bakestones or griddles, crempog is one of the oldest recipes in Wales. They are also known as ffroes, pancos and cramoth and are normally served piled into a stack and spread with butter. It is traditionally served at celebrations in Wales, such as Shrove Tuesday and birthdays.

Crempog has its origins in the Welsh language, but is similar to the Breton word krampouezh, which is also a type of pancake. Comparisons are often drawn between the two Celtic languages which share ancestry in the Brittonic language, though the krampouezh is more dainty than the crempog and is today closer to a Crêpe than a pancacke.

The English word crumpet may be derived from crempog or Cornish krampoeth.

The history of food in Wales is poorly documented, and much of what is known lies in verbal and archeological evidence. Wales has a long history of baking using a bakestone (Welsh: maen), a large round portable flatstone. The flagstone was replaced by a metal plate known as a gradell (griddle), and these appeared among the list of objects made by blacksmiths in the Laws of Hywel Dda (13th century). Bakestones were commonly used throughut rural Wales for making flatbreads with evidence of their use found in farmhouses and in the homes of landed gentry. Early flatstones were placed on a tripod over an open fire, though in many areas, especially in south-west Wales, a specially designed circular ironframe with a half hoop handle was used. By the early decades of the twentieth century built-in wall ovens were common throughout kitchens in Wales, though these would be wood and coal burning. The tradition of using a bakestone coexisted with these newer ovens. Heating the large ovens was generally confined to one day a week and was used to make bread and cakes to last the family until the next week. These were augmented with whatever could be cooked over the open fireplace using the bakestone. Common foods cooked using this method were cacen radell (griddle cake), bara crai (unleavened bread), cacen gri (speckled cakes) and crempog.