Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Happy Shrove Tuesday!

Today is Shrove, or Pancake Tuesday - aka Mardi Gras (which literally translates as Fat Tuesday). To celebrate, we held Waffle Wednesday this morning, and tonight DLang & I will be dining on deliciousOrange and Cinnamon Buttermilk Pancakes.

During many conversations today about the origin of Shrove Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras, I heard an (unconfirmed) rumour that Brits generally only eat pancakes on this day, and eating pancakes on other days would be weird there (like if we were to eat a Büche de Noël on some random non-Christmas Thursday). Discussing the religious origins of days like today (Shrove Tuesday is the precursor to Lent, which begins tomorrow, on Ash Wednesday) generated questions about the calendar, and it's interesting to note that the Christian Easter is based on the lunar calendar - that is, it falls on a different day each year, depending on the cycle of the moon.

It's almost like it's Pagan.

Shh.

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