Topic: Who ate Pancakes for supper tonight?
Here is some info, I had forgotten all about Shrove Tuesay, guess I need to get to Church more. What a bad Catholic I have been.
Shrove Tuesday is the term used in the United Kingdom[1], Ireland[2], and Australia[3] to refer to the day after Shrove Monday (or the more old fashioned Collop Monday) and before Ash Wednesday (the liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday). In these countries, particularly Ireland, and amongst Anglicans in Canada, this day is also known as Pancake Day, because it is customary to eat pancakes on this day.[4][5][6] In other parts of the world—for example, in historically Catholic and French-speaking parts of the United States and elsewhere—this day is called Mardi Gras. In areas with large Polish-immigrant populations (for example, Chicago and Detroit) it is known as Paczki Day. And in areas with large German-immigrant populations (for example, Pennsylvania Dutch Country) it is known as Fasnacht Day or Fauschnaut Day.
The French also have a festival associated with pancakes (crêpes) which is held on February 2 each year. This festival is called Chandeleur and is a celebration of light (the name is derived from the word "chandelle" which also gave the English word "candle". The festival is known as Candlemas in English). It is thought that pancakes are associated to this celebration because of the solar symbolic of their shape and colour. The traditional food for Mardi Gras are sweet fried dumplings usually served in the shape of a loose knot or a 5cm wide, 20cm long strip of dough one extremity of which is passed through a slit in its middle.
The reason that pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent is that the 40 days of Lent form a period of liturgical fasting, during which only the plainest foodstuffs may be eaten. Therefore, rich ingredients such as eggs, milk, sugar and flour are disposed of immediately prior to the commencement of the fast. Pancakes and doughnuts were therefore an efficient way of using up these perishable goods, besides providing a minor celebratory feast prior to the fast itself [2].
The word shrove is a past tense of the English verb "shrive," which means to obtain absolution for one's sins by confessing and doing penance.[7] Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the shriving (confession) that Anglo-Saxon Christians were expected to receive immediately before Lent.[8]
Shrove Tuesday is the last day of "shrovetide," which is the English equivalent to the Carnival tradition that developed separately out of the countries of Latin Europe. In countries of the Carnival tradition, the day before Ash Wednesday is known either as the "Tuesday of Carnival" (in Spanish-speaking countries, "Martes de Carnaval," in Portuguese-speaking countries, "Terça-feira de Carnaval", in German "Faschingsdienstag") or "Carnival Tuesday" (in Portuguese-speaking countries "Terça-feira Gorda", in French-speaking countries, "Mardi Gras," in Italian-speaking countries, "Martedì Grasso").
The term "Shrove Tuesday" is not widely known in the United States[9][10], especially in those regions that celebrate Mardi Gras on the day before Ash Wednesday.
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