Friday, August 17, 2012

Pancake Day

By Ben Panny


In English speaking countries, Tuesday is the term used to refer to the day right after Collop Monday and prior to Ash Wednesday. The liturgical season of Lent starts at Ash Wednesday. In a few countries this day is also identified as a National Pancake Day since lots of men and women consume pancakes on this day.

You could question why pancakes are linked with the day before Lent. It's like this because, it's a period of liturgical fasting, through which only the plainest food may be eaten. That is why rich ingredients for instance milk, sugar, eggs, or flour are discarded immediately before the commencement of the fast. As you in all probability already know, pancakes had been the ideal way of using these ingredients and furthermore they provided a small celebratory banquet before the fast itself.

National Pancake Day is celebrated in English nations. One time in 1634 on a Pancake Day, when pancake race happened in the village in the United Kingdom, William Fennor wrote this in Palinodia: 'And toss their pancakes up for fear they burn". You already assume that Pancake Day has a long history, but the truth is the custom is even older. Pancake racing had began long before 1634. The well-known Pancake Race at Olney Buckinghamshire has been held since 1445.

Through the Pancake Day, races are organised. The contestants of the races are ordinarily woman. They are carrying a pan in the hand and they run towards the finishing line. Through the race, they're throwing the pancakes. As the pancakes are extremely thin, some abilities are essential to toss them while running. The winner is the woman who crosses the line first and throws the pancake a specific quantity of instances. It's strongly believed that this custom started when a housewife from Olney who was busy preparing the pancakes and forgot entirely what was the time until she heard the church bells ringing for the service. When she realized it was late, she raced out of the home to church. In her hands she was still carrying her frying pan with pancakes.

In America the tradition of Pancake Races has turn out to be well-known since 1950. The occasion was brought to Liberal, and in 1950 the international challenge was accepted by Reverend Ronald Collins, Vicar of Olney. Since this year folks from Liberal, Kansas, USA and Olney have been taking part in the "International Pancake Day". Pancake race is held between two towns on Shrove Tuesday, which is also known as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. It is actually the last day prior to the Lenten season, when Christians are encouraged to give up luxuries. Rivals race along an agreed upon path. To determine a winner, times of all of the two towns' competitors are compared. Kansas tops England at Annual Pancake Day Race.

A tradition since 1950, the International running of the Pancake Race has turn out to be a symbolic occasion of peace and unity between the England and United states. It's traditional for Olney and Liberal to send dignitaries to every country, so that an official representative is present at the race. At the end of the race, the dignitary congratulates the race winner with the Kiss of Peace.




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