Chances are that you’ve already engulfed a pancake today, be it liberally strewn with sugar and lemon or stacked one upon another and served with bacon and maple syrup. Either way, today is known in Ireland as Pancake Tuesday, a feast before the famine of Lent, which starts tomorrow on Ash Wednesday.
Today is more traditionally known in this part of the world as Shrove Tuesday, and George will be chatting to Ríonach uí Ógáin, director of the National Folklore Collection at UCD about the origins of the day and why the humble pancake takes pride of place at the dinner table in Irish homes this evening.
Tune in live at 6.20pm: http://www.newstalk.com/player/
Of course, while Ash Wednesday is a fixture in many calendars around the world, the day before isn’t always dominated by pancakes. So here’s how the rest of the globe is gobbling up treats before the 40 days of religious fasting start tomorrow.
Denmark – Fastelavn
Our friends in northern Europe swap pancakes for buns, and celebrate by donning costumes and going from house to house collecting money. In the past, the dag was not a favourite for Danish geese; the birds were hung upside down, had their necks greased, and then children and adults would attempt to pull them off, then roasting the bird for dinner. Fun for all the family.
Brazil – Carnival
Rio’s world-famous samba celebration takes place over the week leading up to Ash Wednesday and dates from 1723. The festival ends in the Sambadrome, a custom-built arena where the 200 samba schools of the Brazilian city come together for a night of dancing, music and pageantry.
[Wiki Commons]
USA – Mardi Gras
The French for ‘fat Tuesday’, the Mardi Gras festival in New Orleans is known as a week-long excuse for revelry and bead exchanging. Last year, following successive queues for toilets in the Louisiana capital’s bars and restaurants, an entrepreneur founded AirPnP, an app allowing locals to let out their bathrooms to paying users.
[Wiki Commons]
Poland - TÅ‚usty Czwartek
Poles binge on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, and celebrate by chowing down on pÄ…czki, which are similar to jam doughnuts. On the Tuesday before Lent begins, the day is called Sledziowka, or ‘Herring Day’, and involves eating a lot of the fish.
[Wiki Commons]
Italy - Martedí Grasso
It’s another ‘Fat Tuesday’ in Italy, though the day is less about pancakes and more about whacking your friends and family in the face with oranges. In Ivrea, a town near Turin, Italians get ready for Lent by having the country’s biggest food fight and lobbing oranges at each other at the annual battaglia delle arance.
[Wiki Commons]
