Pancake Day

Pancake Day* is the popular name for the Shrove Tuesday*, the day before the first day of Lent*. In the Middle Ages* on that day people were merrymaking and feasting, a relic of which is eating of pancakes. The ingredients of pancakes are all forbidden by church during Lent that is why they have to be tasted the day before. Whatever religious significance the day may have possessed in the olden days, it certainly has none now.

The most common form of celebrating this day in the old times was the all-town ball game or tug-of-war, in which everyone was tearing here and there, trying to get the ball or rope into their part of the city. Today the only custom observed throughout Britain is pancake eating, though here and there other customs still seem to survive. Among the latter, Pancake races custom is the best-known.

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*Shrove Tuesday - вторник на Масленой неделе (последний день перед Великим постом у католиков и англиканцев)

*Lent - Великий пост

*Middle Ages - Средние века, Средневековье