MEDIEVAL PASTRIES: Wafers

Several sites claim wafers existed in ancient Egypt, but offer no substantial documentation. In the West, the wafer began as the unleavened form of the Host. Darcel rather curiously cites an account from 845 to say the first mention of the Eucharist being presented as a wafer (baked between two hot irons) appeared in... the eleventh century. Especially strange given that he says in a footnote that the ninth century origin of the original was proven. Make of that what you will....

What is clear is that going into the eleventh century, the idea of the Host as a wafer became established (it is sometimes even referenced as shaped like a coin). Sometime after this, the secular form became a common treat. Further (as Darcel goes on to say), a lighter version, known in French as "nieules" but in Latin as "nebulae" (clouds) appeared, and was sometimes thrown down from above during Mass or even carried down by birds.

For Lent, in the rules for Cluny, Udalricus refers to items made in irons from fine flour and "called nebulae by Latin speakers". He does not however clearly distinguish these from standard wafers.

Later in the same work, he gives detailed instructions for making wafers:
Of the Hosts how they are to be made.

What pertains to the Eucharist and the Body of God is worthy of being treated with reverence and care; it is proper that this manner of conduct should not be kept silent. First of all whenever it is necessary to make the hosts, but they are especially made before Christmas, or on the day of the Resurrection. For in winter when the nights are long, it is permissible for the brothers to work before dinner for it is not permitted to do this kind of work after a meal. The wheat, of which the Hosts are made, however good it may be naturally and pure, yet it is chosen grain by grain, and washed carefully, by no one other than the brothers themselves. It is then collected in a bag, not just any kind, but one reserved for this alone and made of good cloth; which bound is commended to a servant who is not frivolous; who, carrying it to the mill, washes both sides of the mill, and covers it above and below with curtains, clothes himself in white, and puts it on his head, and ties it over the shoulders, that is, a cloak, so that nothing of the face but the eyes may be seen. And so he grinds, so he sifts the flour, with the first sieve which he washes carefully. The Major Custodian of the Church, if there is no Priest or Deacon, seeks a substitute for him to complete this work. He also seeks out two others of these orders acquainted with this matter, having received permission from the Prior, and a Lay Brother. These four selected, at night they put on socks, wash their faces and hands, and cover their heads. Then they retire to the Altar of St. Benedict, and there sing the morning Laudes. The first also at the same time, and the seven psalms with the litanies, expanding in the meantime on the rest of the psalms. Then those three, of any order, clothe themselves in whites and shoulder-cloths, as was said above of the servant, (for there are some whites and cloaks assigned to this business only), one of whom sprinkles the flour and stirs it vigorously on a board having a different border all around, a little higher all around, so that the water cannot escape. They sprinkle it with cold water, because from it the Hosts become whiter; the remaining two shape Hosts; water is not carried in any other vessel than that in which it is usually carried to Masses. The lay brother holds the irons, in which they are to be baked, stamped, in his gloved hand. One can put six Hosts in the iron at the same time; whence between the bottom of the iron and the forms for the Hosts a table is set and two stakes are driven over this on which the wood is held transversely, on which are put the irons for Hosts. Those which have not been baked are scraped with a knife, and fall in a dish downwards on the board, and always covered with a cloth, except when the Hosts are scraped.
They sing the remaining Psalms, and if they will, the Hours of St. Mary. At all other hours they keep silence, and take great care that neither their saliva nor their breath may in any way touch the Hosts. Only the lay brother, if required, briefly informs the servants, who make a fire only from dry wood, and industriously made for this purpose. Now those who worked with the Hosts do not themselves take refreshment with the Brethren, but rather with the servants; and for the relief of so much labor they have from the Sacristan for a meal a pittance and spiced wine.

We also have a curious passage from Anjou in 1096 which describes what appears to be a highly flavored variant of the wafer:

one of those who, in the delights of a feast, are wont to prepare bread [sic] made of flour strewn with eggs and sprinkled with crushed pepper, to stimulate the appetite, was present, and he offered the service of making and baking these breads, which they call wafers. He had heated the iron instrument, as you have often seen, for baking bread of this kind, and had opened those open iron plates, which, chained together, are now opened and now relaxed, receiving what was to be cooked.

The full history of wafers, nieules and their variants is dizzyingly complex and includes things like wafers being used for gambling and "waferers" (an official trade early on), likely illegitimate, casing homes for robbery. Readers of French can explore all that here.

Early on, the wafer became a standard dessert and so in a series of menus offered in the Ménagier de Paris a number end with wafers and spiced wine:"The sixth and last course for Issue. Sugared flawns and larded milk, peeled nuts, cooked pears and comfits. Hippocras and wafers."; "Fourth course. Hippocras and wafers for Issue.";"Issue. Figs and raisins, hippocras and wafers as aforesaid."

Sometimes one sees the word 'mestier", which by different accounts refers to a set of wafers or a one very large one. Later it appears to be made with wine.

Elsewhere the text hints at richer wafers:"From the wafer maker, a dozen and a half of ready-made cheese wafers, to wit made of flour kneaded with eggs and leches of cheese rolled therein, and eighteen other wafers kneaded with eggs and without cheese." It also includes several recipes for wafers, though the word used here (gaufres) can also mean waffles [just as wastel and gastel were the same word, with only a consonant shift, so were wafer and gaufre]:

Wafers (Gauffres) be made in five ways. By one method you beat up the eggs in a bowl, then add salt and wine and throw in flour, and mix them, and then put them on two irons, little by little, each time as much paste as the size of a leche or strip of cheese, and press them between the two irons and cook on both sides ; and if the iron doth not separate easily from the paste, grease it beforehand with a little cloth moistened in oil or fat. The second method is like to the first, but you put in cheese, that is to wit you spread out the paste as though to make a tart or pasty, and then you add the cheese in leches in the middle and cover the two ends ; this the cheese remaineth between the two pastes and is this set between two irons. The third method is that of Strained Waffles ( Gaufres couleisses ) and they be called Strained for this reason only, that the paste is clearer and it as it were boiled clear, after the aforesaid manner ; and onto it one scatters grated cheese ; and all is mixed together.— The fourth method is flour made into a paste with water, salt and wine without either eggs or cheese. 
Item, the wafer makers make another kind called big sticks ( gros batons), which be made of flour made into a paste with eggs and powdered ginger beaten together, and then made of like size and in like manner to chitterlings, between two irons.

Note that even these elaborate versions still do not include a sweetener.

The actual wafers appear to have been round. Darcel shows one that was round and many may have yield something like larger versions of the Host. But some surviving irons end in small rectangles, so the shape becomes uncertain.

In the sixteenth century, Charles Estienne (or his son in law Liébault) included this passage about wafers and mestiers in the Maison Rustique, translated soon after into English:

some make wafers of the flower of wheate meale very well soked in water, and tempered a long time there with, untill it come to a certaine thicknes, mixing therewith a little salt finely powdred, and after causing the same to be baked betwixt two irons made hot, first with a reasonable gentle fire, and after annointed with the oile of nuts, these kindes of wafers a man may see made in many places openly and abroad upon festivall and solemne feast daies. There may be made a tendrer and more delicate kinde of wafers, in soaking the flower of the wheate ineale in white wine and water mixt together, and throughly laboured and wrought, putting thereto afterward the yolkes of egges, a little sugar and salt, and so baking altogither betwixt two irons, having within them many raced and checkered draughts, after the manner of small squares, after that the saide irons have beene annointed with fresh butter or oile olive. This fort of wafers is wont to be set on tables at the second courses in solemne banquets. That which the Parisians do call Mestier, is made of the same flower of wheate meale tempered with water and white wine, putting thereto a little sugar, and boiling it all betwixt two irons, after the manner which you used in making of wafers, but that it must not bee altogether so thicke. The kinde of wafers called Oublies, are made with hony in steed of sugar.
Here we have the first mention of sugar, which in general was becoming more common in France at this point.
Bonnefons' recipe from 1688 is slightly confusing, but distinctly richer

Little Mestier, and Wafers
The dough is made with a pound of flour, a pound of sugar, two eggs, and a pint of water; dissolve the sugar in the cold water, and mix the flour to a somewhat hard consistency with the sugared water, then put in the eggs, beat all this well mixing in the rest of the water bit by bit, after which you will add in an ounce of good fresh butter, which melt with a little water, pour it very hot over your dough, mixing all quickly together, try it in your irons, prepare it as for Hosts; if it is too weak, add in flour; and if too strong water too lift them [sic], roll them in your palm, drawing them towards you quickly, and squeeze them dry.

The wafers are made the same way, except that to spare sugar, one uses good honey.

Not a big help in distinguishing between a mestier and a wafer....

Recipes are rare for these over time, yet persist into the twentieth century. In 1904, Favrais published "another recipe for wafers" (it seems to be the only one he offers):

Use the following quantities:
175g flour, one whole egg, 50g sugar, and half a liter of milk. Make a well-kneaded dough, cut into rounds, and mold into a waffle iron.

This is actually simpler than some of the earlier recipes.

The wafer was an enduring and important food, long a common street food. It might be fun to make some of these recipes just as small pancakes, lacking irons.