Just back from a late night eating pancakes on account of it being Pancake Day, or at least it was when we started eating the pancakes earlier on. To my astonishment two of the guests at the feast were American and revealed that not only do they not celebrate Pancake Day in the US, but they had never even heard of it. Then the New Zealander flatmate of the host turned up halfway through the evening and said that she hadn't heard of it before either.And there was me thinking that Pancake Day was a universal feast, like Christmas! It's not like Thanksgiving or Guy Fawkes or Australia Day or that thing where the Spanish get chased through the streets by bulls. It's the global day of pancake love before Lent! Or if not global, at the very least pan-Christian, no pun intended.
But apparently the rest of the world is being deprived their yearly starchy fun. Help me out here, non-British readers. Do you celebrate Pancake Day? And if not, would you like to start, from next Shrove Tuesday? It's really very simple:
1. Wait until Shrove Tuesday.
2. Eat pancakes. (And by pancakes, I mean crepes, oh ye of the US.)
What on earth have you been holding back for all this time? You don't even need to be chased through the streets by bulls!
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We celebrate it here in Canada, but that's because the Resident Fan Boy is an Anglican. Francophones (Quebecois and Acadian) in Canada know it as Mardi Gras. Of course, Mardi Gras is the festival of the year where there's also a francophone (Cajun) tradition. Your American friends would have recognised Mardi Gras, but would probably have no idea that it's connected to pancakes, because Mardi Gras in New Orleans means fancy dress, parades, beads, and lots and lots of drinking.
Yes, many cities in the US besides New Orleans celebrate Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras with parties, wild drinking etc.
Personally, I think the pancake thing sounds great, I am way too old to be showing my boobies for beads!
Parties, wild drinking or carnivals seems to be the case in most countries.
Here we eat pancakes. God, we're wild.
But carnivals are part of the same tradition - carne vale - farewell to meat, because everyone gave up meat for Lent. Pancakes were the last hurrah for the sweet stuff before the period of penance and fasting, to atone for sins etc and remember the time when Jesus went into the desert and was tempted by the devil for forty days and forty nights. In my catholic youth we were emotionally blackmailed to save pennies for CAFOD in this box with a picture of a starving child on it. The person who saved the most at the end of Lent was usually held up as what my mother would term a Proper Little Christian. As there wasn't much spare cash in my house, that was never me... I hated those boxes more then the obligatory giving up sweets for Lent, which I have never managed. Every year I think I will give up alcohol, but every year my husband's birthday falls in the first week more or less and I fall at the first hurdle. Hmm. It's his birthday today. If I pretend tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, do you think it will count???
I shall venture to speak for the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. of A., where I celebrated Shrove Tuesday while growing up by eating something hot, fried, sweet, and yummy...but they weren't pancakes -- they were donuts! We call them fastnachts and boy, are they dangerously good, especially while still warm and freshly drenched in sugar.
I first learned about Pancake Day thanks to my kids' British school in Bangkok. The Oxford Reading Tree book collection includes the title "The Pancake Race", and when my middle son brought it home to read he declared that the next time we make pancakes for breakfast, we must hold a family pancake race. Haven't gotten round to it yet!
Sorry never heard of it, have heard of Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday. And there are a lot of Polish in my area of Wisconsin...and they have the donuts. That's my weigh in...
....but, I do know that both talk like a Pirate and talk like a Dalek day, are coming up : )
Or, for those with Scottish ancestry, you can celebrate with Scotch pancakes. Similar to yer basic pancake, but smaller and thicker, so when you toast them and spread butter on them, they become a small squat circle of deliciousness.
ihop(internation house of pancakes)
give away free pancakes (yes they still call them pancakes in USA) if you donate to a kids charity
(they do not inform you that you can only have 2 pancakes! shocking)
: )
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