IHOP and Pancake Day - Both Good Reasons to Celebrate

Have you caught International House of Pancakes' (IHOP to the connoisseur) ads about National Pancake Day being celebrated February 12, 2008? Last year, IHOP managed to raise $625,000 for charity in a single day, while serving up 1.1 million pancakes, which would have stacked 8.5 miles high.

That's right - 1.1 million pancakes, in a single day. That's a LOT of maple syrup! And a lot of flipping!

The only problem being that Pancake Day was actually last week on February 5 in most European nations and in Kansas. The day before Lent began. Fat Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday. Mardis Gras.

Well, at least IHOP's heart is in the right place, even if they do have the date slightly wrong.

Shrove Tuesday is celebrated throughout most of northern Europe, a day of family celebration and of course, pancakes. The celebration was created as a direct competitor (and replacement) to Carnival (sometimes Carnivale, depending on the language), a wild time of partying and festivities celebrated in nations with Romance languages such as Italian, French, Spanish and Portugal. Mardis Gras in New Orleans and Carnivale in Brazil are prime examples of the type of party the more sedate northern Christians were trying to get away from.

Shrove Tuesday was established as a tamer and less rowdy time to get in that one last day of feasting before the Christian Lent season, in which all good Christians were expected to sacrifice some thing that they enjoy or in which they overindulge. In England and Germany, that meant they had to stop using cooking fats, like lard. Which, considering this was the 15^th Century, probably a good idea, since much of that lard had probably been rendered months before without any means of refrigerating it effectively.

The earliest recorded Pancake Day feasts and celebration was in Olney, England, which started in 1445. Today, Olney and Liberal, Kansas celebrate the day "together" by conducting a race in which women not only compete for the best times in the 415 yard, S-shaped course - but are also required to wear head scarves and aprons while carrying a skillet flapping pancakes in one hand.

For the curious "shrove" is a verb, not a noun or adjective. It is not some strange little underground animal. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, it means "To obtain absolution for (oneself) by confessing and doing penance."

So get ye to IHOP on Tuesday and help celebrate. Not only will you get one of their great meals that they have been serving up for nearly 70 years, you will also be helping local charities.