OK. Pancake Day (or Shrove Tuesday) is the day before the start of Lent. The idea being that you use up all the luxury stuff you're not allowed in Lent (eggs, butter etc) by making pancakes.

Pancakes in the UK are sort of halfway between the US-style thick breakfast pancakes (which confusingly we call 'Scotch pancakes' or sometimes 'drop scones'), and the thin French crepes. They're cooked in a frying pan and flipped over halfway through.

When cooked you add a filling and fold them over like a calzone or roll them up to eat. You can eat pancakes with any sort of filling, though the most usual ones are sweet. Traditionally it's lemon juice and sugar, but you can experiment with all sorts of exotic combinations.

I've always had them as the only part of my evening meal, because I eat so many!

You can have them whenever you want. When I was a kid we usually had them when we got home from school.

Elliott: is he? We sort of lost touch a bit, probably mostly my fault - I've been so caught up in work and moving and everything.

BBC on pancake day

Shrove Tuesday pancakes are crepe type I guess, though I make mine thicker than french crepes. You roll them with a filling, traditionally lemon and sugar, and we've always had them for dinner in the evening on pancake day.

Pancakes are an evening meal today, yes.

Here's a nice page about it and some of the surrounding customs, like pancake races:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/pancakeday/index.htm

I didn't know about Shrovetide Football

"As many as several thousand players compete for two days with a hand-painted, cork-filled ball.

The game is played over two eight-hour periods, the goals are three miles apart and there are only a few rules.

There are just two teams - the Up'ards and the Down'ards."

Cool.

I have it on good authority that pancakes are free at the International House of Pancakes this morning.
Do you have an IHOP in the UK? (If not, they're not very International are they?)

An IHOP in Scotland?
I vow not to rest until I hear a Scottish waitress say to me, "Here's your Rooty Tooty Fresh n' Fruity."
Now if there only were an IHOP in Wales ..

I had pancakes for breakfast this morning, reheated, even (which makes them a bit weirder).

Just FYI- pancake day is the kind of holiday that I can get totally behind.

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Mardi Gras yet! Mardi Gras (French) = Fat Tuesday (English). Same principle - eating up all the good stuff and having a party before the lean days of Lent.

Pancakes = suitable for any time of the day! I'm cooking up a stack tonight for various folk. I like pretty much all fillings - lemon and sugar is best, but other good ones are bananas, chocolate and cream; maple syrup; fruit compote/jam and double cream; spinach and cheese; chicken, mushrooms and cheese etc etc.

English pancakes (crepes with more egg, pretty much) are usually eaten for breakfast on weekends (especially if djm4 is in the vicinity), either with lemon juice and granulated sugar, or jam (or Other Non-Trad Stuff), but on Pancake Day often appear for pudding (US: dessert) or dinner. Savoury stuffed pancakes seem to not be in fashion in pubs etc atm.