What is a Vegan Waffle Party?

Basic Description

The Global Vegan Waffle Party, catalyzed in 2008, is a celebration of conscious consuming. Many of us rarely pause to reflect upon the food we eat—where it comes from, how our food choices impact the world around us, and so on. This doesn’t need to be a labor-intensive process; promoting awareness with a fun event like a party is a great start.

A vegan waffle party is a social event where freshly baked waffles are served with delicious toppings. It can be held in almost any setting, ranging from a small apartment to a restaurant, at any time of day. They often welcome both vegan and non-vegan guests to participate actively and equally by bringing creative vegan toppings.

Your event can include just a few friends or dozens of guests, and it’s up to you whether you’d like to use it to promote or support a particular cause or theme. For example, you might put out some educational literature on the realities of the dairy, egg, and/or flesh industries, or you might have a suggested contribution box for your favorite charity.

It’s easy to let us know you’re hosting. The only items needed are a waffle maker, a vegan waffle recipe, waffle making ingredients, and toppings. You can encourage guests to contribute sweet, savory, spicy, or tangy vegan toppings, or provide them yourself.

There is a growing recognition of the vegan food party or celebration as a change agent, and an increasing number of vegan events and networks with a global focus. By throwing a vegan waffle party, you’re participating in a much larger movement.

Global Vegan Waffle Party Values

The following information, a work in progress, isn’t necessary for hosting an event. However, it may provide additional inspiration on how your party can have positive impact. Or it might scramble a few neurons, in which case I take no credit.

Kindness

Waffle parties celebrate kindness on several levels. The most obvious is reduction of unnecessary suffering of other sentient creatures, by not consuming them or confining them (often in harshly restrictive and painful conditions) to produce foods that we don’t actually need. With production of flesh, milk, and eggs, there are still some pretty unfriendly practices going on in our world.

There’s kindness toward ourselves and our families, via not regularly consuming animal products linked to several health conditions. There’s kindness toward other humans, via freeing many people of the dangerous, crowded, and stressful conditions of many factory farming and processing operations. There’s kindness toward all other life as our food choices become more environmentally friendly. Finally, there’s kindness toward one another as we celebrate our common bonds, regardless of current differences in philosophy or life approach.

Much of this also ties into “connection” below.

Kaizen

Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning “continuous slow improvement” or “change for the better.”* It holds that sustainable change starts with small steps, just big enough to start stretching our comfort zone. If we try to start out too large, or feel that someone else is trying to push us in a direction we don’t like, it can trigger a fear response to change. We may then avoid change altogether or have difficulty maintaining it. On the other hand, if we take a small step and find it manageable and enjoyable, we’re more likely to remain in an open-minded mode that enables us and those around us to learn and grow.

For a non-vegan friend or family member, even making a full vegan entrée for a potluck could seem like a daunting task. However, making a simple vegan topping or attending a vegan party may seem slightly challenging but fun. They may or may not choose to pursue vegan-related ideas much further, but even a slight increase in understanding is a win for everyone.

I recall when I attended my first vegetarian event following 30+ years of eating flesh—as the thoughts raced, it took quite a bit of courage. “Are people going to try to convert me? What if I accidentally say or do something that offends someone? Will people look at me funny if I say I’m not really vegetarian yet?” Of course, none of these things happened, but it was still a bit of a stretch for me.

The other piece of Kaizen is a focus upon continuous everyday improvement, rather than an emphasis upon whether or not we meet a particular standard. Rather than asking ourselves questions like, “What do I need to do to become totally vegan tomorrow?” we might ask each day, “What’s one small thing I can do today to be just a bit kinder?” If you never intentionally prepare food to be vegan, then simply making a vegan topping for a party is one small thing.

Connection

Mister Rogers, a vegetarian famous for his “Won’t you be my neighbor?” message, clearly thought a great deal about connection. Coincidentally, he lived not too far from us and I sometimes saw him around our neighborhood. I feel that the work we’re doing carries forward some of his message about a kinder, more connected world.

We—humans and all living things—are interconnected and interdependent. Much of this occurs through our food. As just one example, if we no longer purchase a large factory farm’s beef and animal milk, we may lessen waste and antiobiotic runoff that impacts a nearby community’s drinking water. Celebrations like waffle parties can inspire us to reflect upon such things, while taking some action to address them.

Waffle parties provide a unique way of connecting and actively engaging guests. This is especially true when they include both vegan and non-vegan guests, and if they all contribute toppings so it’s truly a shared experience. Contact reduces prejudice between groups from both sides, and thus opens the door for greater understanding. To some extent, this relates to the theory of intersecting oppressions (racism, speciesism, sexism, etc.), advanced by Carol Adams and others—i.e., by addressing one form of prejudice, we may open the gateway to address and understand others. Another benefit: the resulting variety of toppings makes it quite clear that a wide range of socially conscious foods is available.

Recognizing how all things are connected, we don’t hold up any particular motive for veganism (e.g., health, human and other animal rights, environmental, economic) as superior to others on this site. We believe they are all interdependent. Your event will reflect your own unique values and experiences.

How Did the Vegan Waffle Party Begin?

The waffle was once viewed primarily as a breakfast food. In 1998, this misconception ended. In a small urban apartment, creative forces converged to catalyze what is now the longest-running annual Waffle Party.

Each year, guests and hosts continued to expand the boundaries of waffle topping possibilities, going far beyond traditional maple syrup. They discovered that waffles can harmonize with ingredients including spices, veggies, curries and tofu. Especially brave guests would bring toppings they had always desired to try on a waffle, but never had mustered the courage to try. In the company of other gastronomic pioneers, they could freely experiment and achieve culinary nirvana.

A 2001 posting by the Word Detective suggested that a 1700s event called a “waffle frolic” may have existed, but we don’t know how much it resembled today’s waffle party. It’s probably safe to say it wasn’t vegan. If you have any clues on this, please let us know!

Around 2005, for a range of reasons, the hosts began to eliminate animal products from their diets, and largely from other areas of consumption. The house party soon became vegan, and WaffleParty.com was founded. By 2008, they recognized the potential of the waffle party to create positive change, and decided that one little house party per year just wasn’t enough. The Global Vegan Waffle Party was born.

Since then, other party hosts have taken the events in many directions. Some have been far larger and complex than our own annual house party, and others have provided a wonderful experience for a small number of guests. What will make your party fun and memorable?

*The development of this philosophy is often attributed to W. Edwards Deming, who traveled to Japan to teach business quality control principles following World War II.