Pancakes will be very popular in all the houses of Dublin this evening. They will be very unpopular to-morrow.
Dublin Evening Telegraph, 4 March 1924
Shrove Tuesday, also called Pancake Tuesday or Festen’s E’en, used to be a banner day for the larder. Now the day before Lent is known for two things: football and pancakes. According to a 2016 survey by Siúcra, more than 12 million pancakes are eaten in Ireland on Shrove Tuesday.
After confession people were shrove, or shriven, another word for absolved, which is where Shrove Tuesday gets its name. According to one legend, Lord Mayor of London Simon Eyre (elected 1445) proclaimed that there would be a pancake feast for all apprentices on Shrove Tuesday, marked by a ringing of the “Pancake Bell.” Most sources attribute the “Pancake Bell” to the church, its ringing reminding people to confess.
Eggs, lard, meat, and animal products in general could not be used during Lent, so Pancake Tuesday was a way to use them up. Fried in fat, and often served with sugar and lemon, pancakes, a representation of the lavish carnival celebration on a plate, were the perfect way to to mark the beginning of Lent with one last decadent meal.
“As for herself she came into my place on Shrove Tuesday night, half drunk and half tipsy, after my mother had made a bowl of batter for the pancakes, danced a one-handed reel in the middle of the poor, swore that it was her birth-day, as she was born on the batter, threw the bowl of materials in my face, and danced off again.”
Atty Cox, College-Street Police Office, Saunders’s News-Letter 12 March 1829
English poet John Taylor humorously described Shrove Tuesday and the making of pancakes in 1621:
“Always before Lent there comes a waddling, fat, grosse, groome, called Shrove Tuesday, one whose manners shows he is better fed than taught, and indeed he is the only monster for feeding amongst all the dayes of the yoere, for he devoures more flesh in fourteene houres than this old kingdom doth (or at least should doe) in sixe weekes after.”
“Such boyling and broyling, such roasting and toasting, such stewing and brewing, such baking, frying, mincing, cutting, carving, devouring, and gorbellied gormondizing, that a man would thinke people did take two months’ provisions at once.”
“Then there is the thinge called wheaten flowre, which the sulphory, necromanticke Cookes doe mingle with water, eggs, spice, “and other tragicall, magicall enchantments, and then they put it by little and little into a frying pan of boyling suet, where it makes a confused dismal hissing—like the Lernean snakes in the reeds of Acheron, Stix, of Phlegeton,—until at last by the skill of the cooke it is transformed into the forme of a Flap-jack, which in our translation is called a pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very greedily…”
“I always looked forward to Shrove Tuesday and to Gran’s pancakes, which were not made in the Kildare way with an ordinary batter of milk and eggs and flour. She made them as they make them in the West of Ireland, with grated raw potato. She got her recipe for boxty potatoes from her mother who was a Mary Kelly from Galway… The boxty pan- cakes were crisp little crumpet-like cakes that were eaten hot with butter and sugar as they came from the pan. Shrove Tuesday was unthinkable without boxty-on-the-pan. They were the fortunetellers that gave you a glimpse of what the coming year held for you.” – Maura Laverty, Never No More
While in many parts of Ireland and even Scotland potato pancakes were eaten instead of flour pancakes, it would still a way to use perishable dairy products. Weather permitting, snow was sometimes used instead of water.
In 1846, a tradesman from Monmouth sent six pancakes to his nephews and nieces through the post office!
We believe that the custom of making Shrove-tide a season in which par excellence, marches are brought about is exclusively Irish.
Clare Freeman and Ennis Gazette, 19 March 1870
While the tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is English, the one unique Irish attribute of Shrove Tuesday is matrimony. Since wedding were not allowed during Lent, Shrove Tuesday was the last day for a while on which couples could tie the knot. Girls who married on this day were called “Pancake Brides.” In the 1800s, unmarried men and women were marked with chalk on their way to church the following Sunday.
Unmarried people had a particularly hard time on Shrove Tuesday. In places where it was known as “Salting Tuesday,” salt would be thrown at them: “The idea of salting is to reserve the salted person from getting stale during Lent” (NFCS 0234:275).
“Skelliging” or “Skellig Night” was seen in the south, especially in Cork and Kerry. Boys would harangue unmarried men and women, even tying them with ropes, with the intention to take them to Skellig Michael to be married. A public Skellig list would even be made. This is one of the more aggressive examples of public humiliation that emphasizes the importance placed on marriage by certain communities during specific times.
Two girls were making pancakes Shrove Tuesday morning. When they had the pancakes made, there was some flour left in the bowl. But there wasn’t enough to make a full cake. In the end one of the girls said: “I will make a small one of it if you turn it” They settled upon doing this She made the cake, and put it to bake on the pan. When the time came to turn it, the one who made it told the other to turn it. The other obeyed. When she had the knife under it, the cake began to move about, and she heard the words Bonnacts on the grifddle Pancakes on the pan If you don’t eat me You’ll never get a man The pancake turned itself, and when well baked this girl ate it. She was married during the week after Easter.
James Mc Govern, Corneenflynn, Co. Cavan (NFCS 0964:124)
Kevin Danaher calls Shrove Tuesday in Ireland a “household festival.” Girls often got the afternoon off to make batter, and family and friends would gather around the hearth. In the hearth any holly left over from Christmas would be burned. The eldest unmarried daughter would toss the first pancake, into which a wedding ring, often belonging to her mother, would be slipped. The practice of hiding the ring in the batter was documented in contemporary newspapers as early as 1871. A button or hairpin (predicting bachelor or spinsterhood) or a medal (relgious vocation) could also be used. The girl’s success at flipping that first pancake would allow her the ‘pick of the boys.’ However, if she failed, her romantic life was doomed, at least until the next year. Men would also get a turn, and often “toss the cake crooked” to much amusement. If they could toss it three times, they would also be successfl
The woman of the house generally began to make pancakes, and they are the pancakes that would please you, if you could be pleased.
The first three pancakes were considered sacred, and marked with a cross and sprinkled with salt. Wetting the pancakes with the “third milking of a goat after kidding” was also meant to be good luck. It was unlucky to eat thirteen pancakes for dinner on Shrove Tuesday
Since meat could not be eaten during Lent, animals were slaughtered in preparation, with the head often going to the blacksmith. Due to the belief that no one should be without meat on Shrove Tuesday, it was shared with those who were unable to get their own. One custom was to hammer a piece of meat (spoilin meith na hlnide) to a rafter or chimney for luck and as a symbolic replacement for the meat that would be absent from their plates during Lent. It was also called “point” – “potatoes and point” was a meal of potatoes and imaginary meat the family would “point” at instead of eating. It would finally be removed on Easter Sunday. Another, less savory tradition was the killing of a rooster.
A more innocent custom was this: Someone not on to the joke would be sent to a neighbor’s to get a “pancake sieve,” a nonexistent item. Either something is tossed in their face, or the neighbor would then send them to another neighbor, and so on. Another prank would be to hide horse chestnuts under the griddle, which would burst and cover the pancakes with ash.
Even now, pancake races are still held, where traditionally housewives competed while tossing pancakes in skillets.
Much like Wren Boys and Biddy Boys, young boys would also get dressed up on the night of Shrove Tuesday. There were a few ways in which they had their fun. One was depositing a turnip dressed in old clothes at the door of any older bachelor in the area, and the male counterpart was called a “stócach” for the spinsters. They also participated in the unpleasant practice of throwing broken crockery into their neighbor’s houses.
Pancake Recipe
These are thin, traditional-style pancakes. Enough for 2 hungry people!.
INGREDIENTS
2/3 cup (100g) all-purpose flour
1/16 tsp salt
1 1/3 cup (300ml) milk
1 tablespoon (15g) melted butter or oil
METHOD
1. Sift dry ingredients and make a well in the center. Crack egg into the middle, then pour in half of the liquid and butter or oil.
2. Gradually incorporate the rest of the milk and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
3. Heat pan on high then lower to medium. Grease with butter or oil and cover the surface with batter (about 1/8 cup per pancake) and tilt to spread evenly.
4. Cook for two minutes or until batter starts to brown, then flip and cook for an additional one to two minutes.
5. Turn out onto a plate, sprinkle with sugar and top with butter or a squeeze of lemon (Jif lemon juice tried to capitalize on the Shrove Tuesday rush in 1985, using the slogan “Don’t forget the pancakes on Jif Lemon Day”!)
cleite agus cnámh 