Tuesday 5 February 2008

Pancake Tuesday!

Pancakes for tea! - Lime juice and treacle! - I had 5 so far - delicious! - handmade by a Squirrel!

Other Pancake-Driven Euphoric Traditions around the world on this day;

  • In the Canadian province of Newfoundland, household objects are baked into the pancakes and served to family members. Rings, thimbles, thread, coins, and other objects all have meanings associated with them. The lucky one to find coins in their pancake will be rich, the finder of the ring will be the first married, and the finder of the thimble will be a seamstress or tailor. Children have great fun with the tradition, and often eat more than their fill of pancakes in search of a desired object.
  • In Estonia (Vastlapäev) and Finland (Laskiainen), this day is associated with hopes for the coming year. On this day, families go sledging and eat split pea and ham soup. A toy is made from the ham bone by tying the bone to a string and spinning it around to make a whistling noise. There is a tale told that if you cut your hair on this day, it will grow fast and thick for the next year.
  • In Germany, Austria and Slovenia people traditionally eat Berliner, Krapfen or Krof.
  • In Hawaii, this day is also known as Malasada Day. Dating back to the days of the sugar plantations in the 1800s, the Portuguese immigrants would need to use up all of their butter and sugar prior to Lent. They did so by making large batches of Malasada (Portuguese Doughnuts), which they would subsequently share with friends from all the other ethnic groups in the plantation camps. This led to the popularity of the Malasada in Hawaii. Still a tradition in Hawaii, Leonard's Bakery would experience long lines to purchase discounted Malasadas on this day.
  • In Iceland the day is known as "Sprengidagur" (Bursting day) and is marked with the eating of salt meat and peas.
  • In Lithuania the day is called Užgavėnės, and many pancakes (blynai) and Lithuanian style doughnuts (spurgos) are eaten.
  • In Michigan, especially in the Hamtramck area near Detroit with a large Polish community, Pączki Day is celebrated with Pączki eating contests, music and Polish food.
  • In Pennsylvania, it is a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition to eat a type of doughnuts called Fastnachts (or Fasnachts). The Fastnacht would be made of all the sweets and other soon-to-be-forbidden items in the household and then consumed on Fat Tuesday so that one would not be tempted during the Lenten Fast. Today they are made from potato dough and fried, often coated with a sugary glaze.
  • In the Philippines a popular treat is bibingka, a pancake made from rice flour and topped with white cheese, butter, sugar, salted duck's egg, and coconut. Bibingka is baked on hot coals in a clay pot lined with a banana leaf. It is traditionally served with salabat or ginger tea.
  • In Poland, Pączki and Faworki are traditionally eaten on Fat Thursday (Polish: Tłusty czwartek), i.e. the one before Shrove Tuesday. However, in areas of Michigan with large Polish communities, they are eaten on "Fat Tuesday" due to French influence. Shrove Tuesday itself is sometimes referred to as "śledzik" ("little herring") and it is customary to have some pickled herring with vodka (Polish: wódka) that day.
  • In Sweden the day before Ash Wednesday is known as fettisdagen ("Fat Tuesday") in Swedish. The day is marked by eating a traditional pastry, called semla or fastlagsbulle, which is a sweet bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream. Originally, the pastry was only eaten on this day, served with hot milk, but eventually it became tradition to eat it on every Tuesday leading up to Easter, as the Protestant Swedes no longer observed Lent. Today, semlas are available in shops and bakeries every day from shortly after Christmas until Easter, and the semla is now often eaten as a regular pastry, without the hot milk. The semla is also traditional in Finland but is there usually filled with jam instead of marzipan.
Enjoy!

1 comment:

MarkF said...

There was a bit of a scarcity of semla buns this year as two of the bakeries failed to sign a collective agreement for their staff.

Probably just as well as King Adolf Frederick died in 1771 after eating 14 of them for dessert...