A LOVER OF PANCAKES AND AN UPHOLDER OF ANCIENT CUSTOMS.
Temple, Shrove Tuesday, 1852.
[Fosbrooke, in his Encyclopædia of Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 572., informs us that "Pancakes, the Norman Crispellæ, are taken from the Fornacalia, on Feb. 18, in memory of the practice in use before the goddess Fornax invented ovens." The Saxons called February "Solmonath," which Dr. Frank Sayers, in his Disquisitions, says is explained by Bede "Mensis placentarum," and rendered by Spelman, in an inedited manuscript, "Pancake Month," because in the course of it cakes were offered by the Pagan Saxons to the sun. So much for the "when:" now for the reason "why" the custom was adopted by the Christian church.
Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday, as it is sometimes called, from being the vigil of Ash Wednesday, was a day when every one was bound to confess, and be shrove or shriven. That none might plead forgetfulness of this duty, the great bell was rung at an early hour in every parish, called the Pancake Bell, for the following reasons given by Taylor, the Water Poet, in his Jacke-a-Lent (Works, p. 115. fol. 1630). He tells us, "On Shrove Tuesday there is a bell rung, called the Pancake Bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful either of manner or humanitie. Then there is a thinge called wheaten floure, which the sulphory, necromanticke cookes doe mingle with water, egges, spice, and other tragicall, magicall inchantments, and then they put it by little and little into a frying-pan of boyling suet, where it makes a confused dismal hissing, like the Lernean snakes in the reeds of Acheron, Stix, or Phlegeton, until at last by the skill of the cooke it is transformed into the forme of a Flap-Jack, which in our translation is called a Pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very greedily, having for the most part well dined before; but they have no sooner swallowed that sweet-candied baite, but straight their wits forsake them, and they runne starke mad, assembling in routs and throngs numberlesse of ungovernable numbers, with uncivill civill commotions." In the "Forme of Cury," published with other cookery in Warner's Antiquitates Culinariæ, p. 33., and written in 1390, we find a kind of fried cakes called "comadore," composed of figs, raisins, and other fruits, steeped in wine, and folded up in paste, to be fried in oil. This suggests another savoury Query, Whether this is not an improvement on our apple fritters?]
Shakspeare, Tennyson, and Claudian.—
"Lay her i' the earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!"
Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 1.
"'Tis well; 'tis something we may stand