Pancake Day: a typically British tradition

Tony Bryant

Friday, 25 February 2022 | Updated 28/02/2022 18:06h.

Spain and countries all around the world are currently enjoying Carnival, a Western Christian and Greek Orthodox festive period that takes place in the run-up to Lent.

The main celebrations usually take place in February and early March, during the period known in the United Kingdom as Shrovetide, but while other countries enjoy public celebrations, street parties and parades, festivities in the UK are typically more reserved.

The British practice of pancake tossing, whether in the home, or in the street, is something that is fast becoming a thing of the past, but it was once a tradition that many families would engage in on Shrove Tuesday.

Pancake Day is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday, a time when Anglo-Saxon Catholics went to confession to be absolved of their sins, or shriven, to give it it's correct name.

Historically, shriving was a ritual that Christians would engage in to receive absolution for their wrong-doings: being absolved of sins would free the person from the guilt and pain that their sins had been causing them.

Shrove Tuesday, known in some countries as Mardi Gras, would have been the last opportunity to use up eggs and milk before fasting for Lent. Pancakes were the perfect way to use up these ingredients, which is why the day is commonly known in the UK as Pancake Day.

Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday, which reflects the practice of the last night of eating rich, fatty foods before the ritual Lenten sacrifices, although some Christians choose to practice temperance – refraining from drinking alcohol - throughout the Lenten season. Others sacrifice the eating of meat.

One of the ways in which Shrove Tuesday was once celebrated in the UK (and still is in some parts of the country) is through pancake races, an opportunity for people, usually in fancy dress, to run through the streets with a frying pan tossing a pancake.

The most famous pancake race takes place at Olney in Buckinghamshire, which, according to tradition, began on Shrove Tuesday in 1445. Tradition records that the church bells rang out to signal the start of the Shriving service. On hearing the bells, a local housewife, who had been busy cooking pancakes in anticipation of the beginning of Lent, ran to the church, frying pan still in hand, tossing the pancake to prevent it from burning.

The tradition of tossing the pancake is most definitely old, as the seventeenth century ode declares: 'Every man and maide doe take their turne, and tosse their pancakes up for feare they burne.'