Pancake Day | Dine | anexpatabroad

“Mix a pancake, Stir a pancake, Pop it in the pan; Fry the pancake; Toss the pancake, Catch it if you can.” Christina G. Rossetti (1830-1894)

It’s Pancake Day! Even over here in our little corner of the desert, I am trying to keep up those childhood traditions going (while I still have a child at home to share it with) and keep a little bit of the ‘British’ in us alive and kicking.

I took a minute to research why do we even have a Pancake Day? Well it seems that traditionally back in the middle ages, households made pancakes on ‘Shrove Tuesday’ (a day of celebration as well as penitence, because it’s the last day before ‘Lent’ in the christian calendar) to use up all the rich ingredients (fat, butter and eggs) in their houses ahead of ‘Ash Wednesday’ (tomorrow) that signifies the start of ‘Lent’ and the giving up of aforementioned rich foods, during a time of abstinence. ‘Shrove Tuesday’ falls on a different date each year (because of the moon apparently) but will always be forty-seven days before ‘Easter Sunday’.

While we know it as ‘Pancake Day’ and ‘Shrove Tuesday’, I did have a little giggle that in France, Brazil and Sweden they call it ‘Fat Tuesday’, what a great name to call a day and a perfect excuse to completely overindulge! However, I think Iceland (the country not the frozen food retailer) wins the prize for best name as their day called ‘Sprengidagur’ is translated as ‘Bursting Day’.

Off to Waitrose to buy the ingredients and let the flipping fun begin! Then it’s all about the toppings, me lemon and sugar, the teenager Nutella (of course) and strawberries and the other half, well he will just abstain!

Happy Fat Tuesday everyone!