In 600 BCE Athenian poet Cratinus described "a flat cake hot and shedding morning dew."
After that pancakes were not written about for 1,000 years. Then in the 1400s, pancakes became extremely popular amongst the British, even having celebrations centered around pancakes. They were especially popular with the working class at the time.
People liked that pancakes were easy to make. In the 1750 cookbook Country Housewife's Family Companion, author William Ellis praised pancakes as "one of the cheapest and more serviceable dishes of a farmer's family in particular; because all the ingredients of the common ones are of his own produce, are ready at hand upon all occasions."
Before the 1800s, brandy and wine had been common liquids for pancake batter. In the 1800s milk and occasionally cream became the preferred liquids for pancake batter, and at that moment the modern pancake was born! Although at that time what was called a flapjack, and in the 1870s the flapjack became known as the pancake.
A few years later maple syrup became the preferred topping of choice. Nowadays each culture seems to have a unique take on pancakes. People eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all over the globe. Some examples of this trans-cultural food are: crepes in France, potato latkes in Eastern Europe, ricotta crespelle in Italy, boxty in Ireland, blini in Russia, crampog in Wales, poori in India, palacsinta in Hungary, and pannenkoeken in the Netherlands.