I love a bit of pancake action and as you well know today is Shrove Tuesday. Traditionally this is the last day before Lent, when fasting or avoiding foods that are joyful to eat is observed. So the tradition of eating pancakes has its origins in the need to use up all the good stuff in the kitchen before the 40 days of Lent – a feast before the self-imposed famine.
Pancake day means flat British pancakes rather than American breakfast pancakes or drop scones and Scotch pancakes as they’re known here, and that’s what we have every year. I loved pancake day when I was little and to my mind we only ever had pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, so they felt all the more special. We had them with lemon juice and sugar and we still do though Nutella has crept in and made an appearance at the pancake show now.
I won’t be home this evening for pancakes so we had these blueberry beauties for breakfast instead. There will be pancakes of course but it won’t be me flipping the old frying pan, well not today anyway.
We practised them last night a la Nigella, with raspberries, delicious. There are more to come today at home time from school. Always a pleasure, never a chore, but have you noticed the pancake flipper always seems to get the least pancakes? Remember last year we got a week ahead of ourselves? x
Yummy Katie. We were just practicing last year… x
woohoo – have fun!
Thanks RJ!
They look delicious. We always have blueberries with pancakes, but I have never actually added them to the mix before!
They are lovely when you cook them, they burst with the heat, very pretty!