Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local
We’ve all been there. It is TIME to LEAVE, already past any grace period — now getting dangerously close to unfashionably instead of fashionably late.
If only I had gotten up five minutes earlier, or the kids hadn’t gotten up quite so early; if only I had a little more pep in my step getting ready, or the two-year-old hadn’t decided this morning was the one to spill every cup of liquid in the house, or it hadn’t taken so long to find everyone’s shoes. The “if only”s are easy.
Yet here we are. It is past time to leave for church, and breakfast is literally still on the stove. I don’t want to burn it, waste it, or go without it, so I grab the whole pan and just bring it along.
Okay, I’ve never actually done that, but it’s not hard to imagine the scenario that may have played out to make pancakes such an important part of Shrove Tuesday.
As legend has it, in 1445 a housewife heard the church shriving bell ringing in Buckinghamshire, England. She just picked up and ran out the door to the service, still wearing her apron and clutching her pancake-laden skillet. In the almost 600 years since, it has become tradition to hold pancake races in various locations around England, with the most famous being an international competition between the original Olney and our very own Kansas town of Liberal. Contestants have to be housewives, garbed in their aprons and hats/scarves, and to run the 415 yards while flipping a hot pancake in their skillet.
As far as traditions go, this seems high up in the running (pun intended) to be one of the most pleasant, quaint, and odd ones around. Not to mention tasty! We love pancakes in this house, and although British pancakes are very thin like crepes rather than the fluffy ones Americans make, we like all types.
I say we like all types…yet I can distinctly hear Brian often lamenting that I keep trying different pancakes, from cornmeal to brownie-esque to homemade master mix and so forth. He doesn’t mind those, per se, but years ago I found The Best Pancakes. They are hearty, dense, and wheaty, and he just doesn’t need anything else.
I don’t need anything else, but you know me, for as a matter of principle I can’t always make the same thing. I’ll return from my wayward ways for at least a moment and make those for him this week on Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday (which in French is “Mardi Gras”).
Pancakes have been associated with Shrove Tuesday for centuries, and that infamous running-late housewife was making pancakes because that’s just what you did on the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. This day, always 47 days before Easter Sunday, was/is traditionally the last day to use up luxuries like butter, sugar, and eggs, before the 40 days of Lenten fasting begin. This would also be a day to confess sins to a priest and be absolved, also archaically called to shrive, the past tense of which is shrove, hence Shrove Tuesday.
We hope the skillet-carrying housewife was shrove of her lateness to church that morning long ago, and we enter into Lent looking toward Easter, knowing we don’t need a priest for true absolution.
And perhaps this batch of hearty pancakes will shrive me in Brian’s eyes as well.
Wheaty Oatmeal Pancakes
It feels a little ironic to me that pancakes are Fat Tuesday’s traditional breakfast as that last-chance run at luxury, whereas they feel like a simple pantry meal to me. It helps that the butter, milk, eggs, and wheat come from our own farm, but those ingredients should be staples in your kitchen as well. Just for funsies, I’ll probably have to jog around in the yard a bit while trying to flip a few pancakes.
Prep tips: you can eat them with lots of peanut butter and syrup, even with a fried egg on top, if you want to really live up to the feast day component.
2 cups oats (quick or rolled, depending on what texture you like)
2 cups plain yogurt or buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons melted butter
½ cup whole-wheat flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
Mix all ingredients, just until combined. Fry in a hot skillet, preferably not right before you’re supposed to be at church. Serve with toppings of choice.
