Pancake Day!!

Pancake Day, is actually Shrove Tuesday, the day preceding Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent.  Traditionally, households would use up luxuries such as butter, sugar and eggs and make a feast of pancakes together with whatever they had, before fasting for Lent.  In other parts of the world, this day is Mardi Gras, from the French for "fat Tuesday".

As a child, my sister and I simply loved loved loved Pancake Day.  It meant rushing home from school, and forming a production line by our mother as she stood over the aga, who had already started proceedings.

I will forever remember the distinctive, rich wafts of melted Irish butter, and the comforting, mouthwatering aroma of freshly made pancakes that emanated from our family kitchen.....

We liked to keep our pancakes simple: with a good squeeze of lemon, a sprinkling of caster sugar, (granulated is too gritty/icing sugar is too powdery), and swiftly rolled up....which made for better handling for little girls!

I had already converted Alex into the ways of Pancake Day, this year however, I decided to rope in two of my very dear girlfriends, Andrea who is Mexican, and Latifa who is French and their husbands.  It was a real team effort.




Andrea and I cooking

 

Andrea and Alberto were kind enough to host our 'Pancake Party', and we decided to have both savoury and sweet pancakes.

Latifa and Kevin brought along Scrumpy Jack, as traditionally the French have their crepes with Cider, and her husband is Cornish.

Alex and I brought along homemade pancake batter and a lovely Meursault.

We filled our pancakes with the following:

spinach + ricotta

melted gruyere + ham

smoked salmon + capers + finely chopped onion + chopped eggs

nutella + chopped hazelnuts + chopped bananas

melted chocolate + strawberries + raspberries + blueberries

It was a marvellous evening, which started off in the kitchen, with everyone mucking in.

Every boy and every girl tossed their pancakes with panache......

It just goes to show....we can get older.....but our inner child will always remain...and jolly good too!

xoxo