However, today is also March 1, and that's St David's Day. St David is St Dewi more correctly in Wales, where he is the patron saint of the country. So, I thought I'd offer a few links to recipes for Welsh pancakes, (crempog or crempogau), which are traditionally eaten in Wales on Shrove Tuesday. The crempog or crempogau recipes I've found make a pancake that's thicker than the ones I usually have in England. They can be stacked and eaten with butter. Here's a few sites:
- Visit Wales recipe: https://www.visitwales.com/things-do/food-and-drink/welsh-food-and-recipes/welsh-crempog-recipe
- Just a Pinch recipe: https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/breakfast/pancakes/traditional-welsh-pancakes.html
- And here's one from Lavender and Lovage that uses yeast: https://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2021/02/welsh-crempog-crempogau.html
Looking further afield, with Ukranian people on most of our minds at the moment, a custom from that country is to eat pancakes to celebrate the start of spring. The festival of Maslenitsa, which takes place in many Eastern Slavic countries, is called Butter Lady, Butter Week, Crepe Week or Cheese Week in Ukraine. The festival takes place in the last week before Great Lent in the Orthodox calender, but it is believed to have origins that date back to pre-Christian pagan times and marked the end of winter. Pancakes are, of course, round like the sun.
Here's a link to a Ukranian recipes site with more about the traditions: https://ukrainian-recipes.com/traditional-celebrations-of-cheese-week-in-ukraine-why-pancakes-are-the-symbol-of-masliana.html
Photo: Pancakes mit Honig (pancakes with honey) by Marco Verch, shared under Creative Commons from the Wikipedia entry on pancakes.
2 comments:
In Sweden we celebrate Shrove Tuesday today by eating semlor. A semla is a bun with whipped cream and almond paste.
The Swedish custom sounds scrummy!
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