Pancake Tuesday in Ireland

Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday as they call it in Ireland, is the day before the start of Lent. It used to be that during the 40-day Lenten fasting period you were forbidden to consume meat, butter, eggs or milk. If a family had to store all of these foods they would spoil by Easter Sunday. So they came up with a solution...pancakes!  Today the pancake tradition lives on in Western Europe, Canada, UK, and Australia. The children did not even get homework on Pancake Tuesday, because they knew all the families would be getting together for their big pancake dinner meal. K and T learned the history of Pancake Tuesday in school...I had never known why it was called that. I learned something too!

We were all excited to see the pancakes in all the grocery stores - mixes, already made pancakes, ingredients to make your own, etc. They had tables set up in front of all the grocery stores. They even had a American style pancake mix. We decided to give this one a try for Pancake Tuesday. 

They turned out pretty well. We had them with nutella, cinnamon sugar (which we brought from the US), and maple syrup (which we also brought from the US). 

Sadly enough the next day at the grocery store all the pancake mixes were gone, tables were gone, Lent has officially started. Its probably the only day of the year that the Irish eat pancakes - on Pancake Tuesday.