Pancake Tuesday

Okay so it's not as good as Mardi Gras but Pancake Tuesday is what we get around here and it's better than nothin'. Yup, so I bet you non catholics out there didn't realise that today is the day you have the freedom (and one could even say obligation) to eat lots and lots of fried, bready circles...flapjacks, crepes, pancakes... If it's got flour, eggs and butter than get to it.

This tradition apparently started because during lent yer supposed to give up all the good stuff (good stuff being, butter, eggs, milk and other yumminess) so on Pancake Tuesday (really called Shrove Tuesday) you're suppose to use up all the leftover dairy products in the house and feed everyone pancakes. It's also kind of a last hurrah. Eat up cuz lent is long(ish) and you won't be seeing anymore of this stuff until Easter (when you can once again, gorge yourself on chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, and other easter basket lovelies.)

It seems slightly odd how religion so often involves food rituals...whether it's fasting, not eating pork or shellfish, not mixing your meat and dairy or eating fish on Friday... Worship the food, or lack there of it. Is it a pagan thing? Is it that some of these things were practical at some point in history? (It just wouldn't do to have your congregation getting poisoned eating bad meat now would it?)

Well, I'm happy to join in and worship the food (just not the rules) and god knows, my pseudo-vegeterian self can easily live without the meat. (Shellfish on the other hand. Not a chance. A life without oysters is not worth living.)

In my foodie world, an appreciation of glorious culinary delight is enough of a religious experience for me. No one who's tasted a homemade warm piece of banana bread with butter or fresh pasta covered in bright green pesto can tell me that that is not communing with the gods. Thank you to the powers that be (if they be at all) for basil and bananas.

Well, since I'm not a Catholic (at least not a practicing one) I will not be embracing lent and saying goodbye to the eggs and butter but I'm happy to eat some pancakes. Bon appetit.