Here's a recipe for pancakes from Hannah Wooley's 'The Cooks Guide or Rare Receipts for Cookery' published in 1664.

We'll be having ours with lemon and sugar. And maybe with cream and jam (well, life's a bit grim at the moment so why not?!) How about you?

The 'using up' of rich ingredients like milk & eggs - the staple of pancake-making - on Shrove Tuesday nevertheless remained a popular custom within the British calendar. It's popularity has outlived Collop Monday (the day before Shrove Tuesday) when meat was supposed to be used up.
I wonder why?

... the puritan ascendancy of 1640-1660, Lent restrictions were abolished altogether for this reason.
Charles II, when restored to the throne in 1660, sought to re-impose them but did not carry out the suggestion and thereafter, Lent was no longer a period of restriction upheld by law.

In the C16th, Henry VIII lifted the ban on milk products, in recognition of the costliness of fish, the remaining source of protein.
The idea of fasting before Easter was difficult for the Reformed (Protestant) church in England to support, since it smacked of Catholic practices. During ...

Today is Shrove Tuesday - or Pancake Day! It marks the beginning of Lent, when, historically, the church expected people to give up eggs, meat, cheese, and sex! The exact list of restrictions has varied over time, but in early medieval times you were expected to fast all day too, a bit like Ramadan.

The association of love and roses is an absolutely ancient one, stemming back into the ancient world.

Apparently the world's largest flower market, Royal FloraHolland, have sold c147 million roses in the days preceding Valentine's Day this year!

In C17th England, the diarist Samuel Pepys often took part in a Valentine's Day ritual of picking names from a hat to denote his Valentine, for whom he had to buy little gifts (a C17th version of Secret Santa).

Sensibly, he also bought a gift for his wife!

The tradition was popularised in works by John Donne, Richard Herrick and - of course - Shakespear in Midsummer Night's Dream:

'Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?'

So, today is St Valentine's Day!

The origins of Valentine's Day are unclear but by the C14th there was an established association of the day with 'love', and people were referring to their lovers as 'valentines'.

It was believed that birds chose their mates on the 14th Feb.

2nd of Feb is Candlemas, or the Feast of the Purification of St Mary, in the Christian calendar, when churches were filled with candles.

Candlemas is closely associated with snowdrops, in bloom now, the white flowers symbolising Mary's return to 'purity', 40 days after Christ's birth.

... teams of local people to tussle with each other to retrieve the 'hood' and get it safely to one or other of the local pubs.
Lots of places have similar customs of 'rough games' - relics of the hi-jinks that typified the 12 days of Christmas in the past.

📷 from www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-engl...

6th Jan or Twelfth Night sees the rough & tumble custom of the Haxey Hood game in Haxey, Lincs.

The 'hood' is a leather tube, 'said' to represent the hood of Lady de Mowbray, which fell off her head & was saved by local farmworkers in the middle ages.

Today it's an excuse for ...

Hello Bluesky! Three of the authors of Nature's Calendar are at it again, but this time we are charting the curious world of the British customary year.

If you don't know your Whuppity Scoorie from your Hare Pie Scramble, then follow along for the wonderful weirdness of British customs, old & new.

The 5th or 6th of January is Twelfth Night (depending on your calculations😏) so in advance, here's a recipe for 12th Night cake, once a more important fruity, sugary, spicy delight than Christmas cake.
Anyone still make 12th Night cake?

This one's from The Diary Book of British Food (Ebury Press)