To hate it being called pancake tuesday

[scrambledeggsandbeans]

Just that really, it's shrove Tuesday it is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Lent – the 40 days leading up to Easter – was traditionally a time of fasting

Thank you @Fink . You're a mine of information. I'm feeling very educated.

They also do a Lent giving calendar at DD's school. There is an item of food/toiletries for each day (e.g jam, baby wipes) and they can bring it in and the items are all collected for the homeless.

That's a lovely idea.

We do this too. And the last item you donate is an Easter egg. I really like it. We do it so you just make up the box gradually at home and then bring the completed thing in.

I call it St Pancake’s Day.

And Simnel day? AKA Mothering Sunday.

Bloody hard work making a simnel cake, I hated cooking at school. Three bloody years of learning to be a housewife.

In my school you had a choice of home ec or science. You were steered towards one or the other based on the results of the entrance exam.

Thankfully, I was directed towards science. I couldn't have coped with home ec. We did sewing, knitting and crochet in primary school. Let's just say, I'm not very talented in that area.

Oh we had to do 3 years of needlework too.

The school was run by nuns so they had to make sure we would make good little wives.

Yes, they have an Easter Egg as the last one too!

That's interesting.

You can keep the caviar, though - it just tastes like salty jam to my plebeian palate.

I'll have a couple of fish fingers though . . .

That is a beautiful and very practical and Christ-inspired idea.

I might suggest this for our church (next year - it doesn't do to spring anything on them).

Ha Ha its all fun. Fun Day. Yes that's better!! Then it celebrates my the two pancakes on my chest

I'm veggie so it's only the oil and the dairy that would affect me but I did find the caviar amusing. It's just so specific and random.

Mine was run by nuns too. They did expect us to have ladylike careers though - teacher, nurse or secretary

The original idea was to avoid blood and things associated with it (so basically veganism). Olive oil and wine were kept in containers made from animal skins, which is why they're included.

For historic reasons, non-fish seafood doesn't count as having blood.

The pan isn’t hot enough

Interesting. So caviar would be treated the same as eggs then as it has the potential to grow in to something with blood.

I wonder why non-fish seafood didn't count. Some of them have blood. Maybe because the blood generally isn't red so they may not have realised it was blood.

Convenience I suspect too. Here in. Britain in the medieval monasteries, only the abbot was permitted meat - all year round . The lower monks were permitted to eat fish ( lowly food not as posh as meat ) But they were allowed to eat Beaver ! Because beaver swim and have a flat tail like a fish therefore must be fish ! ( science not a strong point amongst theologians )
it’s why the beaver population in Britain was decimated and had only been re introduced here about a decade ago. It’s also why we eat fish on Friday . Personally I love fish and would eat it every day of the week.
Once attending a barbecue on Good Friday my very Catholic mother insisted on eating fish as a a penance . She had salmon , the others had cheap sausages!

I think it basically boils down to what scientific knowledge you could gather several hundred years ago without modern instruments and an entirely different outlook on how the world works. The less like a mammal a lifeform is, the less it was understood.

With the beavers, in fairness to my medieval forebears, there's the complication that their birthing and early life takes place within the lodge, so it's not observable by humans without cameras and so on, i.e. you can't necessarily tell that they're mammals just by looking at them. It's not unreasonable to have hypothesised that they might be some kind of creature in between a mammal and a fish.

Your mother's in good company, I've seen that attitude before. Nowadays more people debate what you should do on Fridays if you're already vegetarian.

@HowdidImanagetohavetwoaccountaandthenloseboth

Even when I used to eat meat, I was never the biggest fan of fish. It might have had something to do with the penance my mother served up every Friday - fish boiled in milk🤮

Poor beavers though.

Of possibly convenience/ self-interest.

For purposes of Lent (and Fridays), I believe that the Catholic Church used to classify rabbit as a fish.

Interesting re: beavers - I didn't know that. Thank you.

If beavers are kosher - so to speak- why not otters? I bet fishmongers were well naused off when the Vatican said ' hey lads that no meat on Fridays is a bit dated, so it's not a mortal sin now'

No idea why not Otters but there may be some truth in what @Fink said re rearing young in the holt
No need for fishmongers since anyone was permitted to fish for their dinner in rivers and streams hence it’s reputation as a paupers food

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