But his invention made home cooks capable of creating food that was crisp on the outside and custardy on the inside, food with little pockets to hold everything from melted butter and maple syrup to creamed chicken. Food that only a grouch wouldn't have fun eating.

A few years later, in 1911, General Electric released its first electric waffle iron, making it the automatic kitchen gadget of choice decades before Fry Daddies and food processors came along. Today's waffle irons are bigger than ever, with non-stick finishes and often with deeper pockets, in the Belgian waffle style.

But one of the best uses for a waffle iron still seems to be a bit of a secret: It gives every harried cook the opportunity to say, "We're having breakfast for dinner!"

While the idea of waffles for breakfast is a romantic one, the waffle's unheralded virtue is at the dinner table.

Breakfast-for-dinner menus can get busy cooks through the last part of busy days when they are definitely too tired to whip up something elaborate. Waffles step in as a child-pleasing problem-solver.

At dinner, with a side of fried eggs and sausage — or a topping of creamed chicken — waffles have instant visual and tactile appeal that indicates this meal is special. It's the same at a brunch with a fluff of whipped cream and fresh berries, the waffle can do dessert duty.

Another waffle secret is that they lend themselves to as many variations as you like:

• Add up to 1 cup cooked wild rice, seasoned as you like it, to the batter and serve with chicken in cream sauce or other savory, hot, meaty gravy.
• Replace 1/2 cup flour in the waffle recipe with 1/2 cup cornmeal and add 3 or 4 crumbled strips of cooked bacon to the batter.
• Replace 1/2 cup flour with 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and add 1 teaspoon finely grated orange rind (orange part, no white pith) to the batter.
• Add 1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries or raisins to the batter.
• Add 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips to the batter.
• Make flavored batter, such as chocolate or pumpkin (see recipes).
• Add 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese and 1/4 cup minced ham or Canadian bacon to the batter and serve with an additional sprinkling of Parmesan.

The perfect waffle has a soft interior reminiscent of custard and a crisp outside.

The waffle should be served freshly made, or it will become flaccid and unappealing. At home, if you want the whole family to sit down at once — say, at dinner — heat the oven to 275 and set the cooked waffles directly on the rack in the oven to keep warm and crisp until you have enough to call everyone in to eat.

Extra waffles can be frozen and reheated, a virtue on which manufacturers have capitalized with various "toaster" varieties. But your own frozen waffles, tasting less salty-sweet and eggier than store-bought brands, will be more satisfying. And they are easy to reheat in a toaster oven or toaster wide enough to hold them.

Dorie Greenspan, author of "Waffles from Morning to Midnight" (William Morrow, $15), discovered waffles also make great chips. After she cooks them in the waffle iron, she slow-dries them in the oven for more than an hour until they are crisp.

Waffle recipes call for more fat than is used in pancakes. Higher fat content allows them to become crisper and also to pop free from the iron.