Today is Mardi Gras…or Fat Tuesday…or Shrove Tuesday, depending upon your ethnic background. However, regardless of your ethnicity, I fail to see the relevance behind the tradition. Oh, I understand it’s one last fling of rich, fatty foods before one begins the discipline of fasting and confession associated with the penitential season of Lent. But what’s the point behind it? I realize the celebration in New Orleans today nowhere resembles the original celebration, or its likely intent, but what is behind this tradition? Is it simply overindulgence? I also understand shrove is the past tense of shrive, which means to obtain absolution for one’s sins…but why pancakes? If anyone knows, I’d love any information you could provide, besides, “We’ve always done it that way!”
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