It's a Pancake Kinda Day

People all across England and Scotland had pancakes tonight for dinner and so did we.

Why, you ask? Because it’s Shove Tuesday. Yeah, I didn’t know what it was all about either.

I ate three pancakes from the stack in the bottom of the picture. Dennis ate all the pancakes from the stack at the top....

Shrove Tuesday is a Christian festival marked all over the world but in the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia it's often celebrated by eating pancakes.

Shrove Tuesday is the day before 40 days of Lent. Lent is meant to be a time of sacrifice, in honour of Jesus who spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness. Shrove is the past tense of the verb shrive which means to go to a priest for confession or penance.

It takes place on a different Tuesday each year but it is always 47 days before Easter Sunday.

Lent begins from Ash Wednesday, the day after Shrove Tuesday.

Shrove Tuesday is also the last day of Shrovetide which actually starts with Shrove Saturday.

Lent is a time when people give up something. In Eastern churches, Lent is a time to fast - which may mean that only one meal a day can be served, and certain foods like meat and eggs cannot be eaten.

In Western churches, the rules are more relaxed. People stop eating something they really like, like chocolate or sweets. Catholics may also choose to give up meat on Fridays during Lent. But before the rules were relaxed, people would give up all animal products throughout Lent, including foods like eggs and milk.

Christians would eat pancakes on the last day before Lent begins, to use up things in the cupboard like flour, eggs and milk that they wouldn't be eating for Lent. It meant they could remove any temptation!

In some countries like France and the USA, Shrove Tuesday is also "Fat Tuesday".