Food: Let's toss for it Shrove Tuesday and verger-kissing may be very English customs, but there's nothing insular about pancakes. Michael Bateman celebrates a global treat that ranges from fluffy blinis to crispy poppadoms. Photograph by Jean Cazals

From: The Independent (London, England) | Date: March 5, 2000| Author: | Copyright information

Pancake Day has been celebrated on Shrove Tuesday since at least 1454. As everyone knows, housewives in Olney, Bucks, where the annual pancake race originates, run 400 yards, tossing a home-made pancake three times. They are not competing for a lottery prize but for a prayer book and a kiss from the verger.

I love this English tradition, not the tossing of the pancakes, not the kissing of the verger, not the family excitement, but eating pancakes hot from the pan, brushed with butter, strewn with sugar, splashed with lemon juice.

Making a pancake is surely one of the most rewarding of ...

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