Pancakes

Pancakes are extremely versatile. They can be served with a huge variety of toppings and fillings, both sweet and savoury, as starter, a main course or a dessert. When we were children, my mother would make pancakes for my brother and me on Shrove Tuesday. We would smear them with butter, then sprinkle them with lemon juice and sugar, and roll up and eat them as fast as she could make them. Later, as a student in Southern Germany, I learned how to make the most economical use of the expensive fat, white stalks of asparagus by wrapping them first in a slice of ham, then in a pancake, which I would blanket with cheese sauce and bake under the grill.