Photo by Caitlin Abrams
Pancake Stack
What’s in pancakes is as important as what’s on pancakes. Traditionally, each ingredient had a significance: Eggs = Creation; Flour = The staff of life; Salt = Wholesomeness; Milk = Purity
While most of us think of the Tuesday before Lent as Mardi Gras (AKA Fat Tuesday), it’s also known as Shrove Tuesday (basically the same idea; you just party with pancakes). Anglo-Saxon Christians, in anticipation of the Lenten fast before Easter, would use up their luxurious eggs and fats by making a pancake feast on this day, before they went to church to confess their sins and thus be “shriven,” or absolved. This movable feast is on February 16 this year, and there are plenty of ways to celebrate getting ’caked these days.
Grab Takeout Cakes
Order a classic stack of buttermilk cakes from The Lowry, slathered with butter and dripping with syrup, at any time of the day from this modern Uptown diner.
Be ready to stand in line for the iconic plate-sized cakes at Al’s Breakfast in Dinkytown.
A whole-wheat pancake stack at Eat Street’s Bad Waitress still counts, because: butter, syrup.
Thirty-Six Cafe on Grand Avenue features charming jiggly Japanese soufflé pancakes loved the world over.
Of course, you can find everything at an Original Pancake House, but order the Dutch Baby.
Make It Modern
Photo by Caitlin Abrams
Bubble Waffle Cones
Bubble Waffle Cones
If this is supposed to be a feast, why wouldn’t you make the move toward Waffle Bar, in both Uptown and Lakeville? All the same pancake ingredients are turned into bubble waffles, which become the cones for ice cream and treats to be piled into. This feels like a Mardi Gras party.
Pancake Feed
Local churches like St. Paul’s St. John the Evangelist and south Minneapolis’s Nokomis Heights Lutheran often hold all-you-can-eat pancake dinners on Shrove Tuesday. Check online to see how the 2021 celebration and events may play out.
Photo by Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
Pancake Run
In England, you can always find a pancake race on Shrove Tuesday. Based on a tradition that reportedly dates back to a harried housewife in the 1400s running to church while still flipping her pancakes, modern events can include hundreds dressed up and running a race while simultaneously holding a pan and flipping cakes. Locally, Merlins Rest Pub in Longfellow has hosted runs and pancake feasts to celebrate the day.
