Ruths Information About

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

According To Wikipedia:  Shrove Tuesday Feb 20, 2007  is the term used in the English-speaking countries of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia to refer to the day after Collop Monday and before Ash Wednesday (the liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday). In these countries, and amongst Anglicans in Canada, this day is also known as Pancake Day, because it is customary to eat pancakes on this day. In other parts of the world — for example, in historically-Catholic and French-speaking parts of the United States and elsewhere — this day is called Mardi Gras, and in areas with large Polish-immigrant populations (for example, Chicago and Detroit) it is known as Paczki Day.

The reason that pancakes (or paczkis in the Polish tradition) are associated with the day preceding Lent is that the 40 days of Lent form a period of liturgical fasting, during which only the plainest foodstuffs can be eaten. Therefore, rich ingredients such as eggs, milk, sugar and flour are disposed of immediately prior to the commencement of the fast. Pancakes were therefore the perfect way of using up these perishable goods, besides providing a minor celebratory feast prior to the fast itself.

The word shrove is a past tense of the English verb “shrive,” which means to obtain absolution for one’s sins by confessing and doing penance. Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the shriving (confession) that Anglo-Saxon Christians were expected to receive immediately before Lent.

Shrove Tuesday is the last day of “shrovetide,” which is the English equivalent to the Carnival tradition that developed separately out of the countries of Latin Europe. In countries of the Carnival tradition, the day before Ash Wednesday is known either as the “Tuesday of Carnival” (in Spanish-speaking countries, “Martes de Carnaval,” in Portuguese-speaking countries, “Terça-feira de Carnaval” or “Terça feita gorda”) or “Fat Tuesday” (in French-speaking countries, “Mardi Gras,” in Italian-speaking countries, “Martedì Grasso”).

The term “Shrove Tuesday” is not widely known in the United States, especially in those regions which celebrate Mardi Gras on the day before Ash Wednesday. 

Shrove Tuesday