In the UK, we consume thousands of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. This year, I found myself wondering why this food on this day, and what are its origins?

Shrove comes from the Roman Catholic practice - to 'shrive' is to confess your sins and be absolved or 'shriven' be a priest. Bells would ring to call the masses to church, known as the shriving bells, a custom which few still follow today. 

The next day is the start of Lent, a time of praying and fasting when certain foods would not be consumed. 'Collop Monday' would be the last day to eat thinly slice meats such as bacon, followed by Shrove Tuesday to consume butter, eggs and fats. In French, Mardi Gras translates as Fat Tuesday. Which brings us to pancakes

The ingredients for pancakes are a perfect way to use any left over foods which would spoil during Lent. Some historians believe these could have been used for their symbolic references as well:

Eggs represent creation, milk for purity, salt for wholesomeness and flour for sustenance.

Flipping or tossing pancakes has become an art form, and has been recorded for hundreds of years:

“And every man and maide doe take their turne, And tosse their Pancakes up for feare they burne.” (Pasquil’s Palin, 1619).

Sadly, this maide has not been able to master this skill however, it did become a tradition to hold a Pancake Race. Contestants must run in their aprons with they frying pan while tossing their pancake, which originated in Olney in Buckinghamshire. No one knows exactly how the race began. One version of events is that a housewife heard the shriving bells and ran out to church with the frying pan still in hand, while another says that the pancakes were used to bribe the bellringers.

So, whatever your tradition is on Shrove Tuesday, eat well and have a flipping good time.