Sherlockiana always winds up being about so much more than Sherlock Holmes. He is our center, the piton we anchor our line to, but once that spike is placed, we roam so far afield in our celebrations of him. Including the Waffle House.
The origins of the 221st Southumberland Waffleers, our legion celebrating the Waffle House breakfast at Sherlockian events, can seem a bit hazy. And since the group's start only two years ago, remarkable moments have happened worth noting.
The 221st Southumberland Waffleers had to start in Atlanta, where Waffle House itself began in 1955. Atlanta being so large, however, the journey of the Waffleers, for me, began about forty miles from that original site in Avondale Estates at Waffle House #777, at 143 Highway 74 South, Peachtree City, Georgia, on Friday, April 14, 2023. Steve Mason, a four-star general of the Waffleers if ever we had one, had tried other Waffle Houses in the area surrounding the Atlanta Airport Marriott with Rich Krisciunas and found them questionable at times. I consider Steve and Rich's work scouting missions in Waffleer pre-history, because our true spark, our real pivotal moment in the origins of the Waffleers had to come from an Englishman, as all Sherlockiana must . . . but not Sherlock Holmes this time.
The key incident on that April morning in 2023 was the desire of one Paul Thomas Miller to eat at a Waffle House. Having come to Atlanta all the way from Portsmouth, dragging ethereal Conan Doyle mojo in his wake, Paul was making choices about how to spend his limited time in the states, and one of those was to see what a Waffle House was all about. It was my first time to try one as well, inspired by Paul's desire, and I did much research in coming up with Waffle House #777 to provide an optimal Waffle House experience. Some would later say that #777 was a Waffle House too far, and that one passes too many other Waffle Houses to get to it from the Marriott, but it will always be my waffle home, and anyone who has been there belongs to the 777 corps of the 221st in my mind. (Hey, I don't know how military stuff works, I just eat waffles!)
I think it was that very day that we found a name for the Waffleers, modelling it after Watson's own Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, as we discussed our Waffle House adventures in the hotel bar. I was busy working in the dealer's room that year, and did not record that event in my rather weak blog entries for that year. But by 2024, the Waffleers were. going full steam, having made our way north to Dayton, Ohio, now a second regular outpost of Waffleer activity. A month later we were back in Atlanta, and fully engaged as Waffleers. My report on the group from that month was much more extensive.
2024 was also the year Max Magee started the 221st Southumberland Waffleers Facebook group. Getting nine people to go at once and the manager giving us hats was a pretty big "critical mass" moment for us.
It has seemed like the core of our Waffleer movement has been getting Northern Sherlockians introduced to a Southern staple -- each trip an achievement for Yankees who've never had breakfast at the chain. (Do we call Northern folks "Yankees" any more? I dunno.) Waffleers have dined in the Indianapolis area, the St. Louis area, and more since the initial Atlanta excursions. (The chain does not extend much above the St. Louis-Indianapolis-Dayton line.) There have been extraordinary measures made for the Waffleer cause, including multiple breakfasts in a single morning, the eating of the smothered and covered, pushed-to-the-very-limits of Waffle House hash browns by Northern Erica, and one attempt at a Waffleers medal of honor. Crystal Noll and Heather Holloway discovered the Waffle House museum at the location of the original Waffle House and recovered important documents for the Waffleer archives.
But, what, you may ask, does this have to do with Sherlock Holmes?
More than you would think. Breakfast was a meal that Sherlock Holmes appears as a welcoming and considerate host on several occasions. Ham and eggs, rashers of bacon and eggs, even curried chicken, but no waffles appear in the original tales of Holmes. This is probably due to a decline in waffle popularity in the late 1800s due to cheaper sugar prices making other confections more popular. Also, while there are Brussels waffles, Belgian waffles, Flemish waffles, and American waffles, "British waffles" is not really a thing. And putting maple syrup on waffles is totally an America thing, as table syrups grew popular in the late 1800s when Americans started moving to large cities. (Log Cabin syrup was first created in 1887.)
Sherlock Holmes's time in America in the 1900s could have brought him in contact with American-style waffles, but the Waffle House itself was still decades away. Still, Waffle House was born two years before Holmes died, according to William S. Baring-Gould's timeline. But this Waffleer activity still remains more about Sherlockians and their food-bonding habits than Sherlock Holmes himself. And that's enough.
Will this little fad fade, as the years pass and we try to eat healthier breakfasts? Or will this Waffleer cult become as entrenched in Sherlockian culture as some of our other odd habits? Who knows?
In the meantime, tip your servers generously. We still want to go to Waffle House, and we want them to enjoy Sherlock Holmes and Sherlockians as much as we do.
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