Every year, on Tuesday night before Ash Wednesday, Middleham and St. Peters has a traditional pancake supper in the Great Hall. So, what is the tradition?
Since Lent was a time to repent of sins and fasting, and foods such as eggs, fats, sweets are not allowed, pancakes were a quick and easy way to eat up all of those forbidden items. So before the deprivation of Lent must be endured, a feast was held.
The word “shrove” come from the old English ritual of “shriving,” in which the person confesses his or her sins, and is granted absolution by the priest. As recorded in the Anglo Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes, “In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his (sic) confessor and confess his (sic) deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him (sic).”Since Lent was a time to repent of sins and fasting, and foods such as eggs, fats, sweets are not allowed, pancakes were a quick and easy way to eat up all of those forbidden items. So before the deprivation of Lent must be endured, a feast was held.
Of course there are lots of variations on this theme. New Orleans, with its French influence, calls it Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), and has extended the celebration for weeks ahead, with the biggest and wildest revelry the night before Ash Wednesday.
An alternative celebration is found in England, where there are pancake races. A woman who was busy preparing her pancakes heard the church bell ring, calling the two to confession. She raced out of her house, with her apron on and carrying a pancake in her frying pan to the church. There has been an International Pancake Race competition that has been going between Olney, England and Liberal, Kansas starting in 1950.
Bruce Calvin
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