It's that time of year again, time for the dusting down of the frying pan and hunting for the lemon juice. It is of course, Pancake Day.
Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday, is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Lent is the traditional time of 40 days fasting and Anglo-Saxon parishioners would be summoned to church to be absolved of their sins. This was know as being 'shriven' and the bell that tolled became known as the pancake bell.
Shrove Tuesday always falls 47 days before Easter Sunday, so the date varies from year to year and falls between February 3 and March 9. 2017 sees it come relatively late, the wait has been that little bit longer this time around.
Traditionally Shrove Tuesday was the last opportunity to use up eggs and fats before embarking on the Lenten fast and pancakes are the perfect way of using up these ingredients. Over time toppings have been added but the humble pancake started life as a way of using up the leftovers before the fasting began.
The pancake has a very long history and featured in cookery books as far back as 1439 and the tradition of tossing them is almost as antiquated: "And every man and maide doe take their turne, And tosse their Pancakes up for feare they burne." (Pasquil's Palin, 1619). There is some archaeological evidence that the pancake was the first cereal food that was widely eaten.
But the Shrove Tuesday traditions are much bigger than a simple English pancake.
The French term for the day is Mardi Gras, literally Fat Tuesday, the day for using up items before Lent. Across the Spanish speaking world the day became an occasion for a carnival which today gives us the world renowned Mardi Gras Carnival in Rio. Festivities and various varieties of holidays also take place across Europe including Germany, Holland and Poland.
One English town has taken that internationalism to another level with its annual Pancake Race. Olney in Buckinghamshire has teamed up with the town of Liberal in Kansas and held a joint race over an agreed distance. The overall winner is determined by comparing the times. And this has been happening since 1950. The world has been shrinking for longer than we remember sometimes.
The really amazing thing about the Pancake though, is how ubiquitous it is. Virtually every country has its own variation on the theme. Some may contain slightly different ingredients to others but all are fundamentally recognisable as a Pancake. The Indonesians have the Serabi, the horn of Africa shares the Injera (which is a national dish in Ethiopia) and Colombia and Venezuela are home to the Cachapas.
The pancake is a worldwide phenomenon.
Nowadays the modern pancake has come a long way. The simple thin creation of our youth is now sometimes know as a Crepe and comes in all sorts of varieties. Pancake restaurants have sprung up across the Uk offering sweet and savoury varieties. Simple Lemon and Sugar is starting to look a bit old fashioned. But i suppose that's always a risk with a 1000 year old delicacy.
There is something pleasingly simple and internationl about Pancake Day. Despite it's roots it is not weighed down by excessive religious baggage, it contains very little for people to disagree about. It has not been commercialized beyond recognition. Instead it is that most simple of things, a historical day for feasting. For using up what you had, for grabbing some enjoyment before the harder times of Lent. It is a day of celebration, carnival, confession and cooking.
So wherever you are in the world, heat a pan, grab those familiar basic ingredients and settle in for a flipping good time. Just don't forget the lemon juice.
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