Pancakes: Flip, flip, hooray!

I’ve just been to buy a packet of batter mix and a bottle of squeezy lemon, a tradition started by our forbears many hundreds of years ago.

Shrove Tuesday became synonymous with pancakes pretty much as soon as it was invented, because it heralds the start of Lent. Lent was a bit stricter in those days – none of this ‘giving up Brussels sprouts’ malarkey – and Christian types weren’t allowed pleasant things such as sugar, milk, eggs or smiling. In a crazed attempt to rid themselves of these sinful commodities on the last day of freedom, they tossed them all into a hot pan, and the rest is history.

But what, you may ask, is a shrove? Turns out it is nothing more than a common verb, the past tense of shrive, which – if I know you, and I think I do – you will appreciate means ‘to confess, repent and seek absolution for one’s sins’. Presumably the modern translation of Shrove Tuesday – Pancake Day – came about when people realised they weren’t doing a whole lot of shriving but were enjoying an inordinate number of pancakes.

When I were a lass I went to this boy’s house for Pancake Day one year, and we took it in turns trying to flip pancakes. Some of them got stuck to the ceiling, most of them landed on the floor, and all of them tasted foul. So, call me dull, I use a utensil to flip pancakes now that I am old. But by all accounts, flipping pancakes straight out of the pan is what Jesus used to do, and experienced pancake-flippers continue to operate to this day, often racing against other people of equal talent in what is known as a pancake race.

This bizarre tradition began on this very day in 1445 in the small town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, when a pancake-cooking housewife heard the church bells calling her to her shriving duties and dashed out of the house, forgetting – forgetting – to cease flipping pancakes as she ran. As I write, dozens of proud Olney women are emulating this woman’s absent-mindedness, and indeed pitting their so-called wits against the women of Liberal, Kansas, in what I imagine is the only international pancake race in existence, now in its 59th year. Judging by the town sign, all participants must be disguised as portly nuns.

It’s what Jesus would have wanted.