Irish Shrove Tuesday Pancakes with Lemon

How Shrove Tuesday is Celebrated in Britain

Pancake Day is a traditional day for making and eating pancakes. It’s also a delicious way to use stores of milk, butter, and eggs, which are forbidden during Lent. 

Irish Central says, “The earliest records of pancakes and pancake tossing appeared in the fifteenth century when the pancakes were a little thicker than the modern pancake; they would also often have added spices for a little decadence. It wasn’t until the eighteenth century and the influence of French cooking and their thin crepes that pancakes more as we know them now.”

Shrove Tuesday traditions in Scotland and Wales

“In Scotland, special oatcakes called Bannocks were made using oatmeal, eggs, and salt and cooked on a griddle. A charm would be added to the dough and if an unmarried person found it, they would be married within the year.”

“Wales also had their own customs where people would pass from door to door begging for flour, lard or butter. In some parts of Wales, children would kick tin cans up and down the streets, believed to be commemorating the putting away the pots and pans for Lent.”

Symbolism for Shrove Tuesday Pancakes 

Pancakes have been featured recipes in cookbooks since 1439. Flipping those pancakes have been a tradition for nearly as long.

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

Pancake ingredients symbolize significance during this time of the year.

• Eggs: Creation
• Flour: The staff of life
• Salt: Wholesomeness
• Milk: Purity