Pancake Day dates back to 1445... and they taste as good as ever

You know you can’t resist a lovely home-made pancake. Pass the lemon juice and the brown sugar and let the fun begin. Pancake Day falls on Ferbruary 25. Here we look at a brief history of the annual feast.

Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday, is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. This year, it falls on Tuesday, February 25.

Lent – the 40 days leading up to Easter – was traditionally a time of fasting, and on Shrove Tuesday, Anglo-Saxon Christians went to confession and were ‘shriven’ (absolved from their sins). A church bell would be rung to call people to confession. This came to be called the ‘Pancake Bell’ and is still rung in some churches to this day.

Shrove Tuesday always falls 47 days before Easter Sunday, so the date varies from year to year but always falls between February 3 and March 9.

Historically Shrove Tuesday was the last chance to use eggs and fats before embarking on the Lent fasting, and pancakes were seen as the perfect way of using up those ingredients.

The pancake has a long history and featured in cookery books as far back as 1439.