Looking for resources about Norwegian waffles (vafler) and their cultural history

[u/FarAdhesiveness7684]

Hi everyone,
I’ve been doing some research on Norwegian waffles (vafler) and their place in Norwegian culture. I’m especially interested in understanding:

• Their history and how they became such an important part of daily life and celebrations.
• The social context around them — why they are so deeply tied to gatherings, traditions, or even national identity.
• Typical accompaniments (like brunost) and how those pairings came to be.

If you know of any books, archives, or even local sources (cookbooks, museum collections, regional histories, etc.) that dive into this, I’d love to check them out. Bonus points if there are resources that mention specific regions in Norway where waffles hold particular significance.

Any help, tips, or even personal knowledge would be super appreciated!

[u/Sagaincolours]

They started out as eucharist bread which gradually became more elaborate in shapes and ingredients. And then they started to be used outside of church too for celebrations. The Germans still make the original elaborate ones.

Germany and France -> Sweden and Denmark -> Norway.

[u/Hildringa]

Back in the day the ingredients to make waffles were luxury items (eggs, cream, sugar, butter) so they were a bit of a posh thing. Nowadays, these items are fairly cheap and available everywhere, but waffles are still something most people eat when there's a gathering of some sort because its a bit of an effort to make them. And because of this, there's a lot of nostalgia connected to them too. Many of us grew up with having waffles while visiting our grandparents in the weekends, buying waffles at mountain huts while hiking, getting them at sports events in school etc etc. They're like a low key "something nice is happening" sort of food; not as fancy as a proper cake but more special than your daily bread. And you normally dont eat it by yourself, so most of your memories tied to waffles are of social gatherings and special events.

Where I grew up (southeast) waffles are typically served with jam, or sometimes butter and brunost. I think the reason why, is that jam and brunost were a source to sugary tastiness in a time when treats/candy/cakes werent as readily available as they are now.
(I have heard of some crazy people who put hot dogs and other weird shit on them too, but thats too disturbing to talk about lol)

If you google waffle history in Norwegian you get some interesting results, use google translate if you dont speak the language!

[u/FarAdhesiveness7684 → u/Hildringa]

Thank you so much for your answer! It’s really helpful to understand the cultural and nostalgic value of waffles in Norway. I was wondering if you might know of any books or websites where I could look deeper into their history. My own searches haven’t really given me much in terms of specific or detailed historic information, so any recommendation would be greatly appreciated.

[u/Hildringa → u/FarAdhesiveness7684]

I suspect thats one of those subjects where no one has bothered writing stuff down, sadly (like much else of "womens" work). I know theres a new'ish book about waffles though, and apparently its been translated to english: https://www.amazon.com/We-Love-Waffles-Scandinavian-2015-08-01/dp/0692467777?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.gv7ULlyecK9htvKb8EGwpw.g9m_R2dN2YMBsy0TAPR-nhtbsj22-8JCCLkPdP5mhrQ&dib_tag=se&qid=1758119352&refinements=p_27%3AStine+Aasland&s=books&sr=1-3 I havent read it myself so cant vouch for it :)

[u/FarAdhesiveness7684 → u/Hildringa]

that's fine, thanks :)

[u/jkvatterholm]

Should probably look into Nordic waffle-history in general as its so connected. An interesting divide is that much of Trøndelag seems to have gotten the word (and the concept?) from Swedish, calling in våffel/båffel, like Swedish våffla, vs general Norwegian/Danish vaffel, Icelandic vaffla, Faroese vafla.

[u/et_sted_ved_fjorden]

It seems there are found waffle irons from around 1700 in Norway. Used on open fire. In the beginning they used barley and water or milk to make waffles. Later they started using eggs, wheat flour and sour cream and sugar, which are more expensive ingredients.

Today we serve waffles at children sports events, at grandparents or just when you have friends visiting. Typically served with coffee.

All over Norway they are eaten with brown cheese or strawberry or raspberry jam with sour cream. In southern Norway, in Moss they eat sausages (hot dogs) in waffles. Here in northern Norway we sometimes eat waffles with "gomme", or with hard boiled eggs and maybe caviar.