What do people eat on Fat Tuesday?

Today is Fat Tuesday!


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Ah well, it's "pancake day" in the UK:
A nice batch of scotch pancakes for supper with jam, maple syrup or some of the nice dandelion syrup I made last summer.

It's almost night time. Waaay past food time on Mardi Gras day.

Silly me, I made brown rice, pan fried chicken in olive oil, and steamed vegetables.

I will try to make up for this faux pas as soon as possible.

It's pancake day today.  So I eat pancakes for dinner.  

English pancakes which are sort of like a really thick crape.  Cover in lemon juice and sugar.  roll.  eat with a spoon while they are hot.  The lemon interacts with the sugar to make a syrup.  

Normally, pancakes for breakfast, jambalaya &/or gumbo, for supper. No meat, tomorrow.

I always have time for pancakes.

We had pancakes, Because I am English, Danes don't do anything at all today it's not one of their holidays.
Pancakes with sugar and lemon juice. pancakes with either fish or chicken in white sauce, rolled up and baked in the oven. To me English pancakes are much the same as the french crepe's, I rarely bother making them I normally do drop scones, much faster and less faff but for pancake day it has to be pancakes.

Beignets are the New Orleans pancake-ish thing of choice.

In Chicago  it's "paczki  day" thanks to the Polish immigrants. A kind of filled doughnut to use up the fat before lent. I think that prune or plum butter is traditional filling, but now of course Americans make giant ones with all sorts of fillings.

Mike Barkley wrote:Beignets are the New Orleans pancake-ish thing of choice.

I always compare Beignets to donuts without a hole then dusted with powdered sugar.

I guess it depends on how a person eats them.

I found this that puts a spin on the traditional Beignets that I have eaten:

Best beignets in New Orleans

I never knew there were so many different traditions and names for March 1st.

Mk Neal wrote:In Chicago  it's "paczki  day" thanks to the Polish immigrants. A kind of filled doughnut to use up the fat before lent. I think that prune or plum butter is traditional filling, but now of course Americans make giant ones with all sorts of fillings.

Happy Paczki Day!

I never saw them when I lived in Vegas, which I thought was surprising due to the international tourist attraction, but I didn't look everywhere and that is not something that would be advertised in Vegas.  As usual I looked (online) for them here ins southern Utah but the only place I saw them available was the WalMart in Cedar City, about an hour away.  I wanted them but not that much.  Bavarian cream, custard, and apple are my favorite fillings.

"Pączki are deep-fried pieces of dough shaped into spheres and filled with confiture or other sweet filling. Pączki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing, glaze or bits of dried orange zest. A small amount of grain alcohol (traditionally rectified spirit) is added to the dough before cooking; as it evaporates, it prevents the absorption of oil deep into the dough. Pączki are commonly thought of as fluffy but somewhat collapsed, with a bright stripe around them; these features are seen as evidence that the dough was fried in fresh oil.
Although they look like German berliners (in North America bismarcks) or jelly doughnuts, pączki are made from especially rich dough containing eggs, fats, sugar, yeast and sometimes milk. They feature a variety of fruit and creme fillings and can be glazed, or covered with granulated or powdered sugar. Powidła (stewed plum jam) and wild rose petal jam are traditional fillings, but many others are used as well, including strawberry, Bavarian cream, blueberry, custard, raspberry, and apple.
Pączki have been known in Poland at least since the Middle Ages."

Anne Miller wrote:

Mike Barkley wrote:Beignets are the New Orleans pancake-ish thing of choice.

I always compare Beignets to donuts without a hole then dusted with powdered sugar.

I guess it depends on how a person eats them.

I found this that puts a spin on the traditional Beignets that I have eaten:

Best beignets in New Orleans

I never knew there were so many different traditions and names for March 1st.

Much depends on a person's faith. The "Fat Tuesday" and "Ash Wednesday" are very Catholic traditions. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of lent - a 40 day time of solemnity, fasting, and personal sacrifice, leading up to Easter Sunday. Fat Tuesday is all about getting all the meat, eggs, and dairy out of the house, so they neither get wasted nor become too tempting. The pancakes are a great way to use up a lot of those items.

growing up in protestant traditions, this day was "Shrove Tuesday"-- which meant pancake dinner at most of the churches we went to!

Now I live in the land of Carnaval-- we were barbecuing every day since last Friday, so by Tuesday night we had quite had enough. I wanted to make pancakes, but decided to do that some other night and had a green juice instead.
Here during Lent most people eat a bit more fish (at least on Fridays) instead of meat, and there are pop-up fish stores all over the place from now til Easter.

Happy, fulfilling, peaceful Lent to those who observe it. It is one of my favorite times of year (although I'm not affiliated with any of the usual groups that observe), I always take up some sort of challenge and it's almost always an improvement that extends into the rest of the year. This year I'm cutting out "stupid phone time", doing more meditation, and buying as little as possible.

I've lived fairly close to New Orleans for almost a year now. Last time I was there was about 30 years ago. No desire to go there ever again. (have you seen their news lately?) Other than a couple pieces of king cake a month ago I didn't do anything for Mardi Gras. Bleh, not my kind of thing. Would have no problem with Carla's suggestion of gumbo or jambalaya though. Yum.

Carnaval? I'd like to check that out!

In south central Pennsylvania where I grew up, it was know as Fasnatch Day. A classmate’s parents ran a bakery and could never make enough donuts that day.

2023 and tomorrow's the big day! I'm gathering ingredients for gumbo and have found plenty of flavor inspirations: Fish sauce? Smoked turkey carcass? Worcestershire sauce? Opuntia? Purslane? Any other vernacular twists out there in Permieland?
This lovely essay, Everyday Sacred: A Personal Path to Gumbo, by Pableaux Johnson, has freed me up to take some local detours for this year's Fat Tuesday culinary adventure. Happy foraging!

It's Carnaval but this year I'm working, so I made a big old pot of red beans and rice for everyone else (who's off work/school these days) to eat for lunches....
tomorrow, pancakes for sure! I have some peach preserves left over, they'll go great together.

I'm planning to start tomorrow with pancakes. John usually makes gumbo, and I usually make jambalaya, but I'm not sure about that, this year, because it kinda snuck up on us.