Pancake Day
Every Shrove Tuesday, women in aprons sprint through an English town flipping pancakes, racing a rival town in Kansas – and the winner gets a kiss from the verger.
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Quick Facts
- Proper name
- Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent
- Date
- Moves with Easter, landing anywhere between 3 February and 9 March
- Why 'shrove'
- From 'shrive': to confess your sins and receive forgiveness
- Original purpose
- Using up eggs, milk and fat before the Lenten fast
- Famous race
- The Olney Pancake Race in Buckinghamshire, said to date from 1445
- Transatlantic rival
- Liberal, Kansas, which has raced Olney since 1950
- Rowdiest tradition
- Ashbourne's Royal Shrovetide Football in Derbyshire, played over two days
- Classic topping
- Lemon juice and sugar
The day you were meant to confess
Pancake Day began as a religious deadline. Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the old word 'shrive', meaning to confess your sins and be absolved. People did that before Lent, the 40 days of fasting leading up to Easter. The kitchen side of things was purely practical. Eggs, milk and fat were off the menu during Lent, and a pancake was the quickest way to use them up in one go. Flour, eggs and milk, a hot pan, and the larder was cleared for the fast. Because Easter moves around the calendar, so does Pancake Day. It can fall as early as 3 February or as late as 9 March.
The woman who ran to church with her frying pan
The most famous pancake story belongs to Olney, Buckinghamshire. Tradition says that in 1445 a woman was so busy making pancakes that she lost track of time. When the shriving bell rang, she dashed to church still holding her frying pan. Today's Olney Pancake Race commemorates her. Local women in aprons and headscarves run about 415 yards from the market place to the church of St Peter and St Paul, tossing a pancake as they go. The winner is rewarded with a kiss from the verger. Since 1950, Olney has had a rival: Liberal, Kansas, which runs the same distance on the same day. The two towns compare times, which makes it one of the friendlier transatlantic rivalries going.
When Shrove Tuesday turns into a battle
Pancakes are the gentle side of the day. In several English towns, Shrove Tuesday means a mass football game with almost no rules. Ashbourne in Derbyshire plays Royal Shrovetide Football over Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. The town splits into the Up'ards and the Down'ards depending on which side of the Henmore Brook you were born, and the goals stand about three miles apart. The ball is thrown up at 2pm and the scrum can surge through streams and gardens for hours. Atherstone in Warwickshire holds a ball game said to go back to 1199, with a heavy leather ball tossed from a pub window. Sedgefield in County Durham has its own ball game too. At Westminster School, meanwhile, there is the Pancake Greaze. A pancake is thrown over a high bar and pupils scramble for it, with a reward from the Dean for whoever comes away with the biggest piece.
Skipping, bells and Welsh buttermilk
Scarborough marks the day with mass skipping on the seafront, a custom with long local roots. Whole crowds jump the same long ropes together. In many places a bell once marked the start of the pancake feast. Olney's shriving bell still plays a part in the race. The call to stop work and start cooking has been rung in churches for centuries. Recipes vary too. British pancakes are thin and crêpe-like, quite unlike the thick American stack. Welsh crempog, traditionally made with buttermilk, is usually thicker and a little tangy. Scotch pancakes are a different thing altogether: small, puffy drop scones. In Scotland, Shrove Tuesday was also known as Fastern's E'en, the eve of the fast.
Lemon, sugar and the great flipping debate
The classic British topping is lemon juice and caster sugar, simple and sharp. Chocolate spread, golden syrup, bacon and maple syrup all have fierce defenders. Then there is the tossing. Flipping a pancake in the pan is half the fun and half the disaster. Everyone has a story about one landing on the floor or stuck to the ceiling. The point is to try. Shakespeare's clown in All's Well That Ends Well compares something fitting perfectly to 'a pancake for Shrove Tuesday', which shows the day was already a fixture on the English calendar by around 1600. Four centuries later, it still is.
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