Right now, though, the waffle iron is out of temper and the siren sounds like a drowning finch and the waffles stick something terrible. Breakfast is waffle top or waffle scrapings, or, worse yet, just plain old toast. Cleaning stuck waffle off the waffle iron becomes a task for later in the day, when I am feeling more pulled together. (I am not a lark nor much of an owl, I am a daytime, sunshine person.) And making waffles the next morning becomes an exercise in hope, or maybe I should say folly.
This is life, and I am resigned to that. Some days everybody is out of temper and a little grumbling and jostling are normal. But this morning, I did get a mostly whole waffle out of the waffle iron, or two, actually, and the waffle iron is not in the clean-later pile. Very good news.
The home electric waffle maker became a fixture of the well-appointed kitchen in the 1930s, right alongside the pop-up electric toaster. General Electric introduced the first commercial electric waffle maker in America in 1911; Bisquick, Aunt Jemima, and the rest introduced dry pancake and waffle mix in the 1930s; and the Dorsas brothers introduced frozen waffles, Eggos, in 1953.
Apparently the etymology of waffle is unclear or in dispute. According to the Wikipedia entry, waffle originally comes from a Frankish root, wafla, or honeycomb. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, waffle originally comes from Proto-Germanic wabila, honeycomb or web, with ties to Old High German weban and Old English wefan, to weave. And if the words "Frankish," "Proto-Germanic," and "Old English" don't leave you all aswoon, as they do me, I'm done now.
As for the second meaning of waffle, to waver, maybe I will tackle that some day when I am feeling indecisive.
