It feel like forever since I’ve last blogged, and looking back, so much has happened since November… the holiday season came and went, and with it came family time, food, and festivities. Now, in the middle of the winter, I often get stuck in the cold-weather lull of waiting for spring and all of the upcoming fun (Spring break! Graduation! Summer vacation!).
But I was reminded by my father that a very important day is coming up this week, a holiday that my father insists will change our lives each and every year.
The other day my family was sitting at the table eating dinner when my dad excitedly told us to guess what next Tuesday was. Besides having a calculus quiz, I could not for the life of me figure out what he was talking about until he finally blurted out “Pancake race night! It’s Mardi Gras!”
Time to back up a little: My exuberant, always positive father began celebrating Shrove Tuesday when he was working in the Senate. One of his co-workers was from the town of Liberal, Kansas, home to the ‘Pancake Day Race.’ One year, they had a pancake race on Capitol Hill, and afterwords my dad decided that he would carry the tradition on in our family.
So what even is Pancake Day? How does it fit in with Mardi Gras? Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day– all describe the day before the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of fasting and prayer before Easter Sunday. As the story goes, in 1445 in the town of Olney, England, a woman was trying to use all of her cooking fat, forbidden during Lent, by making pancakes. However, the bells rang to call her to church in the midst of cooking the pancakes, so she ran to the church, skillet in hand. In the following years, neighbors throughout the town of Olney got involved, making it a race to see who can get to the church first with the most flips of the pancake in the skillet.
In 1950, the Jaycee President R.J. Leeye of Liberal, Kansas contacted the town of Olney to challenge the women of Olney to race against the women of Liberal. They accepted, and over the last 65 years, the annual race has become a four-day festival in Kansas complete with parades, a Miss Liberal Pageant contest, pancake eating contests, and the famous race.
But I was reminded by my father that a very important day is coming up this week, a holiday that my father insists will change our lives each and every year.
The other day my family was sitting at the table eating dinner when my dad excitedly told us to guess what next Tuesday was. Besides having a calculus quiz, I could not for the life of me figure out what he was talking about until he finally blurted out “Pancake race night! It’s Mardi Gras!”
Time to back up a little: My exuberant, always positive father began celebrating Shrove Tuesday when he was working in the Senate. One of his co-workers was from the town of Liberal, Kansas, home to the ‘Pancake Day Race.’ One year, they had a pancake race on Capitol Hill, and afterwords my dad decided that he would carry the tradition on in our family.
So what even is Pancake Day? How does it fit in with Mardi Gras? Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day– all describe the day before the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of fasting and prayer before Easter Sunday. As the story goes, in 1445 in the town of Olney, England, a woman was trying to use all of her cooking fat, forbidden during Lent, by making pancakes. However, the bells rang to call her to church in the midst of cooking the pancakes, so she ran to the church, skillet in hand. In the following years, neighbors throughout the town of Olney got involved, making it a race to see who can get to the church first with the most flips of the pancake in the skillet.
In 1950, the Jaycee President R.J. Leeye of Liberal, Kansas contacted the town of Olney to challenge the women of Olney to race against the women of Liberal. They accepted, and over the last 65 years, the annual race has become a four-day festival in Kansas complete with parades, a Miss Liberal Pageant contest, pancake eating contests, and the famous race.
So why does our family do it? We don’t practice Lent, we don’t have ties to Olney, England, and Mardi Gras typically isn’t a festival we talk about much. But each year my dad insists on holding a pancake race, and each year the tradition continues.
He invites all of our neighbors to the cul-de-sac across the street, and we divide into teams. When the whistle blows, the first team to have all of its participants make it across the street and back while continuously flipping the pancake and not dropping it wins. The whole thing is hysterical to watch — all of our neighbors, young and old, working so hard to run a pancake across the street — it’s the kind of happy, carefree moment that makes me appreciate who I’ve grown up surrounded by, and the camaraderie that our neighborhood exhibits.
Afterwords, everyone comes back to our house for New Orleans style jambalaya or gumbo, and for dessert, a King Cake with a plastic baby baked inside for good luck. Apparently this too is a different Mardi Gras tradition — whoever gets the plastic baby in their slice of cake will have good luck for the next year, another tradition that my dad takes this very seriously. He has several babies on standby to place in the cake, and the whole cake must be consumed, for fear that the baby may not be served. Like the pancake race, this too is a ridiculous tradition, but we all love the absurdity and the fun that it creates.
He invites all of our neighbors to the cul-de-sac across the street, and we divide into teams. When the whistle blows, the first team to have all of its participants make it across the street and back while continuously flipping the pancake and not dropping it wins. The whole thing is hysterical to watch — all of our neighbors, young and old, working so hard to run a pancake across the street — it’s the kind of happy, carefree moment that makes me appreciate who I’ve grown up surrounded by, and the camaraderie that our neighborhood exhibits.
Afterwords, everyone comes back to our house for New Orleans style jambalaya or gumbo, and for dessert, a King Cake with a plastic baby baked inside for good luck. Apparently this too is a different Mardi Gras tradition — whoever gets the plastic baby in their slice of cake will have good luck for the next year, another tradition that my dad takes this very seriously. He has several babies on standby to place in the cake, and the whole cake must be consumed, for fear that the baby may not be served. Like the pancake race, this too is a ridiculous tradition, but we all love the absurdity and the fun that it creates.
For a family that doesn’t celebrate the religious side of Fat Tuesday, we’ve turned the day into a celebration of our friends and neighbors. We gather together, laugh, eat cake, and enjoy each other’s company, which is exactly what a celebration should be. Pancake Day, crazy as it is, has become a family tradition, and this Tuesday, you better believe that I’ll be running as fast as I can to win the Pancake race!