Shrove Tuesday (known in some countries as Pancake Day) is a day in February or March, preceding Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), which is celebrated in some countries by consuming pancakes.
Pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent because they were a way to use up rich foods such as eggs, milk, and sugar, before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent. The liturgical fasting emphasized eating plainer food and refraining from food that would give pleasure: in many cultures, this means no meat, dairy products, or eggs.
Shrove Tuesday, a moveable festival, is determined by Easter. The expression “Shrove Tuesday” comes from the word shrive, meaning “confess”.Shrove Tuesday is observed by many Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Roman Catholics, who “make a special point of self-examination, of considering what wrongs they need to repent, and what amendments of life or areas of spiritual growth they especially need to ask God’s help in dealing with.”
Being the last day before the penitential season of Lent, related popular practices, such as indulging in food that one sacrifices for the upcoming forty days, are associated with Shrove Tuesday celebrations, before commencing the fasting and religious obligations associated with Lent. The term Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday”, referring to the practice of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season, which begins on Ash Wednesday.
Shrove Tuesday is exactly 47 days before Easter Sunday, a moveable feast based on the cycles of the moon. The date can be 3 February or 9 March or anything between.
Like many other European holidays, the pancake day was originally a pagan holiday.
Before the Christian era, the Slavs believed that the change of seasons was a struggle between Jarilo, the god of vegetation, fertility and springtime, and the evil spirits of cold and darkness.
People believed that they had to help Jarilo fight against winter and bring in the spring.
The most important part of Shrovetide week (the whole celebration of the arrival of spring lasted one week) was making and eating pancakes.
The hot, round pancakes symbolized the sun.
The Slavs believed that by eating pancakes, they got the power, light and warmth of the sun.
The first pancake was usually put on a window for the spirits of the ancestors.
On the last day of Shrovetide week some pancakes and other food were burnt in a bonfire as a sacrifice to the pagan gods