My mother was too busy with Rosie to make pancakes, so I had a go. I don’t know why my father went so mad, the kitchen ceiling needed decorating anyway.
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, Sue Townsend
It’s been years since I gave up something for Lent. At my Catholic school, though, it was the done thing, and so I forewent chocolate, sweets, and being deliberately contrary in interactions with my sister (that one never lasted long). We were taught about Shrove Tuesday, and the tradition of using up perishable foods before the annual fast began, then we’d queue up at the tuck shop for a plate of pikelets, drizzled with honey, and served with a big spoonful of jam. We’d eat them with our hands, fingers sticky with the sugar, and bid farewell to sweet treats for the long weeks to come.
Of course, pancakes have been around for much longer than Shrove Tuesday. There’s evidence that our prehistoric ancestors were eating something akin to a pancake in the Stone Age, they were enjoyed with honey by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and the Elizabethans flavoured theirs with spices and rosewater. Pancakes are now made all over the world, from all types of starches and grains, and because of this familiarity they function as shorthand for domesticity. When lying to the police about a ‘normal’ morning at home, The Goldfinch’s Theo claims to have eaten a batch studded with blueberries and chocolate chips. Adrian Mole is cross every Shrove Tuesday at his mother’s disinclination to make pancakes for the family. Pippi Longstocking welcomes her friends with a batch, and Gone Girl’s Amy makes some in an attempt to cast herself as a wholly domestic woman.
Despite my disinclination to take anything off the table during the lead-up to Easter, I still look forward to Pancake Day. My tastes have changed since childhood – I’m now more likely to make soured buckwheat pancakes, or potato ones seasoned with herbs, as I am sweet, fluffy pikelets – but there’s something wonderfully ritualistic about making them: whisking the egg into the flour, adding the milk drop by drop, swirling the butter around the pan, and then eating the first one (an inevitable aesthetic failure) as you cook the second.