Pancake Day

Pancake Day

Today is Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day. Shrove Tuesday is the day before the beginning of Lent, which is the period of40 days leading up to Easter. Traditionally, during Lent, Christians avoid eating rich foods, for example foods containing lots of eggs or milk. So how do we use up our eggs and milk before Lent begins? We make pancakes, like this.

First, mix some flour and a pinch of salt in a bowl, and then break two eggs into the flour. Whisk the eggs and flour together. While you are still whisking, add a little bit of milk, and then a bit more, until the batter is like thick cream. Then, heat a frying pan until it is really hot, and pour a small amount of the batter into the pan. Tip the pan from side to side to spread the batter thinly all over the pan, and cook the batter for about half a minute.

Then– and this is the really good bit– you turn the pancake over, so that it can cook on the other side. How? You flick the pan, tossing the pancake into the air, and catch the pancake in the pan again. Or maybe you don’t catch the pancake. Maybe it lands on the floor, or sticks to the ceiling. Your children will think it is very funny, even if you don’t.

Assuming that you catch the pancake, and it doesn’t go on the floor, you then cook it for a few more seconds and serve it with lemon and sugar. Delicious!

In many places there are pancake races on Pancake Day. The runners have to toss a pancake in a frying pan while they are running. One of the most famous pancake races is in London, with teams from The House of Commons, the House of Lords and the press. I read in today’s paper, however, that one traditional pancake race, in Ripon in Yorkshire, has been cancelled for health and safety reasons. Health and safety reasons? I cannot understand this. What can be dangerous about a pancake race?

The other traditional Shrove Tuesday sport is much more dangerous– football. Shrove Tuesday football is not like the modern game with11 players on each team, and a referee. No, it is a very ancient game and the rules are… let me see…. oh, there aren’t any rules. In the town of Atherstone, not far from Birmingham, for example, the Shrove Tuesday ball game is played like this. At3 pm, someone will open an upstairs window in Barclay’s Bank in Atherstone High Street. He or she will throw a ball into the street below. The crowds in the street will then kick the ball, throw the ball, run away with the ball, fight each other for the ball, hide the ball, do almost anything with the ball. ( But they are not allowed to take the ball out of Atherstone– that is about the only rule in the game.) At5 pm a klaxon sounds. Whoever has the ball when the klaxon sounds is the winner. It sounds more like total war than a game of football, but everyone seems to enjoy themselves.

Have a good Pancake Day!