The origins of Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day

The 40-day season of Lent officially begins Ash Wednesday. With our Catholic friends, Anglicans worldwide traditionally ‘celebrate’ this day. But few of us can match our historical counterparts in observing any kind of Lenten fast, which traditionally also begins then.

Such, by the way, is the historical reason for Shrove Tuesday, the term used in many English-speaking countries for the day before. The word shrove, past tense of the old English verb shrive, referred to obtaining absolution for one's sins. In other words, Christians were expected to go to confession in preparation for the penitential season of turning to God.

An early church tradition advised abstention from anything killed, and the produce—like milk and eggs—of those animals. In pre-refrigeration days, that meant a lot of food had to be consumed so it wouldn't go bad during the weeks leading up to Easter. So many families would whip the households’ perishables into pancakes the day before Lent. The day thus became known as ‘Pancake Tuesday’, which in some quarters morphed into Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday).