For those of you that may not be aware, today is Shrove Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday). Breaking it down a little further... Ash Wednesday is the start of Lent. Even more break down... Lent is the 40 days before Easter.
Should I break it down further for my atheist friends? Easter is the celebration of Christ's Resurrection. ;)
The church I grew up in always had a Pancake Feast on the night before Ash Wednesday. I never really knew why, but now that I am older, my mom doesn't seem to have any memory of this tradition. So I put on my research hat and did what any excellent, educated researcher would do...
I Googled it.
Then looked at Wikipedia.
During the Lent season, you weren't supposed to have anything rich or decedent. So that meant no dairy, eggs, or sugar. Now you can't let this good food go to waste. In an effort to not be wasteful, you needed to use all of those items prior to Ash Wednesday. And what uses sugar, eggs, and dairy? PANCAKES!!
Pancake Day is an actual holiday in England. They still have work and stuff but it is a day that people know about, like Groundhog Day. A couple of English women I know put on Facebook that they were served pancakes at work today. How awesome would that be? Another reason to LOVE England.
So tonight we feasted on PANCAKES. I made regular, blueberry, and chocolate chip pancakes. They were yummy.
Not sure what I will be giving up for Lent. I don't always give up something for Lent, but I feel like I want to this year. In the past, I have given up coffee, soda, caffeine, that kind of thing. I was thinking of giving up eating out, but that just means I have to cook constantly. We may limit the amount we eat out instead. We will see. I have until tomorrow to decide.
Hope everyone enjoyed Pancake Day!
Love, Mrs. Janney
I definitely remember the pancake feast! Thanks for the mini-history lesson too! I haven't quite decided yet on what I'm giving up either...hopefully something comes to me :)
ReplyDelete