I love waffles, and I cannot lie. They are crunchily fluffy ice creamy goodness. When I need to deal with misdirected anxiety, it is to the humble waffle that I turn again and again. And yet, the common waffle is perhaps but one of a larger family of confections deserving of our, eh-hem, scientific study.
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| The common waffle (Vaflum vaflum) |
Behold the majestic stroopwafel, roaming the verdant coffee shops of Belgium and the Netherlands. While developmentally similar to their larger cousins, stroopwafels are actually born in the heart of a red giant star, explaining their denser structure and more caramelized surfaces. The adult stroopwafel will return to the star where it was born to raise its young, completing the circle of life like a delicious phoenix. Phoenixes, you need up your deliciousness if you are going to compete.
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| The stroopwafel (Vaflum sirupus) |
Such deliciousness comes at the cost of fierce predators taking notice. This has led to the evolution of flocking behaviour. By hanging around in packs, the loss of one or two stroopwafels still leaves the rest of the pack as progenitors for the next generation.
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| A teddy bear (Ursus theodorus) stalks an unsuspecting pack of stroopwafels |
Careful fierce predators! The stroopwafel has a further defensive strategy. While you may be tempted to keep going after the second stroopwafel, a fatal spike in blood sugar levels is sure to follow. Selective pressures have favoured the expression of syrup producing genes which arm the stroopwafel with this silent biochemical weapon.
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| Al Gore places the blood sugar spike following stroopwafel ingestion into perspective |
What does the future hold for this majestic creature? More study is necessary to better understand the ecology of these fragile animals. More researchers are necessary that can study them without accidentally swallowing the test subjects. Consider donating to the Adopt-a-Stroopwafel foundation, and you will receive a coffee mug that you're totally not supposed to use to heat 'n eat a stroopwafel, why don't you have a nice bit of shortbread instead?
