{"id":67478,"date":"2014-03-04T13:22:15","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T18:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=67478"},"modified":"2014-03-04T15:27:06","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T20:27:06","slug":"who-wants-flapjacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/04\/who-wants-flapjacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Wants Flapjacks?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Blueberry_pancakes_(3)\"<\/a>

Photo: Janine, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

Today is Mardi Gras, yes\u2014the beads, the cake, the booze, the breasts. We get it. I love a Dionysian spectacle as much as the next joe, but one can take only so many years of unhinged debauchery, face paint, and galettes des Rois\u00a0<\/em>before the charm wears thin, even when there\u2019s nudity involved. We need a change of pace.<\/p>\n

Enter Shrove Tuesday, i.e., National Pancake Day, i.e., today<\/em>. Picture a Mardi Gras where men lust not for nipples, but for fluffy flapjacks. The Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Day has just taught me about the pancake bell, \u201cA bell rung on Shrove Tuesday at or about eleven a.m., popularly associated with the making of pancakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagine! A bell devoted entirely to pancakes, a bell whose mellifluous peals say to all within earshot, Abandon your post, hire a sitter, and get thee to the griddle\u2014it is time to eat starch.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shrove<\/em> is the past tense of shrive<\/em>, meaning \u201cto hear the confession of, assign penance to, and absolve.\u201d On the Tuesday before Lent began, the same bell that called people to confession served as a stern reminder: use your eggs, milk, and butter now, because once the day is out, we must begin ritually fasting and you are totally fucked.<\/p>\n

Thus, everyone began to run home and whip up hotcakes; some people, rumor has it, even tried to cook the pancakes as they ran home, tossing and jogging, jogging and tossing, perhaps ladling syrup on occasion. To this day, the British town of Olney holds a pancake race (\u201cParticipants must don an apron and hat or scarf to compete<\/a>. They are also required to toss the pancake three times during the 415 yard race, serve it to the bell\u00a0ringer, and receive a kiss from him\u201d) and IHOP<\/small> hosts a fundraiser, though it does not, to my knowledge, involve the tolling of a pancake bell.<\/p>\n

The OED includes an early reference to the bell, from Thomas Dekker\u2019s\u00a0The Shoemakers Holiday<\/em>, which dates to 1600: \u201cVpon euery Shroue tuesday, at the sound of the pancake bell: my fine dapper Assyrian lads, shall clap vp their shop windows, and away. This is the day, and this day they shall doot, they shall doot.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Mardi Gras, yes\u2014the beads, the cake, the booze, the breasts. We get it. I love a Dionysian spectacle as much as the next joe, but one can take only so many years of unhinged debauchery, face paint, and galettes des Rois\u00a0before the charm wears thin, even when there\u2019s nudity involved. We need a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7555],"tags":[687,10325,13068,7868,13067],"class_list":["post-67478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-history","tag-language","tag-mardi-gras","tag-national-pancake-day","tag-oxford-english-dictionary","tag-pancake-bell"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe History of the Pancake Bell<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 4, 2014 \u2013 Today is Mardi Gras, yes\u2014the beads, the cake, the booze, the breasts. 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