28th February: Shrove Tuesday

It's Shrove Tuesday, aka Pancake Day. Here are a few things you might not know about Shrove Tuesday:

1. "Shrove Tuesday" comes from the word shrive, meaning "absolve" by way of Confession and doing penance. The expression “Short shrift” meaning a quick confession made by a criminal before execution comes from the same root.
2. Other names for this day in the liturgical calendar include pancake day (because of the tradition of eating pancakes) Mardi Gras (fat Tuesday). In Germany it is known as Fastnachtsdienstag or Veilchendienstag (violet Tuesday). In Iceland it is called Sprengidagur (Bursting Day) and in Estonia it is called Vastlapäev.
3. The pancake eating tradition comes from the need to use up all the things in the larder that it was forbidden to eat during Lent, which begins the following day, Ash Wednesday, ie dairy products, meat and Eggs.
4. It doesn't mean pancakes for everyone. On the Portuguese island of Madeira they eat malasadas, a kind of doughnut, and in Iceland it's salted meat and Peas. In Estonia they eat pea soup, whipped-cream and jam filled sweet-buns.
5. Pancake races are a feature of the day. This tradition is said to have begun in 1445 when a housewife from Olney, Buckinghamshire, was so busy making pancakes she forgot the time until she heard the church bells ringing for the service. To get to church on time she had to dash out of the house with her frying pan and run to church, tossing the pancake as she went. Olney is one of the many places to keep this tradition. Contestants, traditionally women wearing aprons and scarves, race over a 415-yard course to the finishing line. They must toss their pancake at both the start and the finish. Men can join in as long as they dress up as housewives.
6. Sledding, skipping and Football matches involving the entire populations of villages also take place in some parts of the world, not to mention carnivals.
7. Like many Christian festivals, Shrove Tuesday could have had pagan origins. Slavic people in ancient times celebrated the start of spring by helping the gods of spring and fertility defeat the gods of darkness. Part of this process involved the making of pancakes, which are round and therefore represented the sun. People believed they would receive the power of the sun by eating them, and at the end of the week, they would burn some as a sacrifice to the pagan gods.
8. Shakespeare mentions Shrove Tuesday in All’s Well That Ends Well: “as fit as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday”.
9. In France, people make a wish before flipping their pancakes, while holding a coin in their other hand.
10. I'll end with some pancake records. The largest pancake ever made measured 15 metres and weighed three tonnes. The most flips anyone has ever done with a pancake is 349 flips in two minutes. The highest pancake toss reached 329cm high. The most pancakes served in eight hours is 34,818. Finally, Andrei Smirnov from Russia ate 73 pancakes in an hour.

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