Saturday, February 24, 2007

# Pancake Day!

20th February 2007 is the Pancake Day! (Also known as Shrove Tuesday)

Shrove Tuesday is commonly used in UK, Ireland and Australia. The day comes after Collop Monday and before Ash Wednesday, where the Lent season begins.

So why are pancakes associated with the day signifying the start of the Lent?

There is an explanation that there is a 40-days period of Lent of fasting, during which only plain food may be eaten. Food considered "rich" like eggs, milk and sugar are disposed before the fasting starts. So, a way to use up these perishable goods is to make pancakes and doughnuts, which in a way gives people a minor celebratory feast before the pain fast starts.

According to wikipedia, the word "shrove" is a past tense of "shrive", its meaning is to obtain absolution for our sins by confessing and doing penance. Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the shriving that Anglo-Saxon Christians were expected to receive immediately before Lent.For a non-christian like me, Pancake Day have a different meaning... It means, YUMMY!!!

My housemate made some salty pancakes, in which she added onions and peppers and other stuffs. They taste yummy, it's a totally different taste from the traditional ones.

I prefer the sweet ones, so I took out all my long-neglected flour (hope it is still useable) and eggs and sugar and everything...
and after 15 minutes... they're done!

As I squeezed the honey all over my pancakes, I can't help taking a closer look at these beauties...

And an even closer look...

I like to stack the pancakes up, and cut them in layers. It saves space and time too. Here I come, pancakes!

6 comments:

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Pancake day came and went here - our church does this annually - but on the nearest Sunday, and the money raised goes to a local charity. I missed it this year because I was away for the weekend, but anyway I did have one huge pancake on Friday - at Southern Cross Railway Station, Melbourne. $3 - savoury, thick, huge, made with grated potato, peas, etc. so technically it wasn't the usual one made with flour. We used to call these 'mock fish' when my mother cooked them - with grated potato and beaten up egg.
w.

Pandabonium said...

Interesting. I didn't know about Pancake Day before, though of course I have heard about Lent. And Wendy's one sounds interesting too. I'll have to look for a recipe for that.

We like pancakes. In fact, I make them for K every Sunday morning (no sugar though). We put honey or maple syrup on them. I especially like whole wheat pancakes, but I don't usually have whole wheat flour around as I have to special order it.

When my girls were little, I'd make pancakes in different shapes (Mickey Mouse is an easy one) and decorate them with fruit for eyes and mouth.

With the Experimental Aircraft Association on Maui, we would do an annual Father's Day "fly-in" and sell pancake breakfast as a fund raiser.

Anyway, enjoy your pancakes, YD. They look yummy to me. Hooray for pancakes.

The Moody Minstrel said...

I never knew about Pancake Day, either. Wow...live a little, learn a lot. (Or was that "Learn a little, live a lot"?)

Nutella!!!
I LOVE Nutella!!!!!!!!!

I've never tried it on pancakes before. Oh, stupid me!

YD said...

Wendy
That's very nice of the church. Meaningful way to celebrate the day before the fast starts. Wow, that's a new way to make pancake to me... I'll have a try to make it next time. Thanks!

Panda
It's very nice to know other pancake-lovers!

Great idea to attract kids to food! I'll try that with my nephew next time. :-D

"Fly-in" pancakes? Sounds cool! I wan dat wone!

Pancake rules!

Moody
Nutella! I LOVE NUTELLA TOO!!! YAY YAY YAY!

LOL. ;-) Enjoy your pancake with Nutella topping!

Anonymous said...

I bet it tastes better if the batter were mixed with coconut whites (forgotten the exact name-leftover coconut meat shreads after the milk were squeezed out)and eaten with honey/ syrup.

Yang yang.

Whiskoffee said...

The more I look at the pictures, the more hungry I feel! Arrrrggghhhhhhhhhh.... =p