Today is Fat Tuesday, the day for gluttony and celebration before the austerity of Ash Wednesday and Lent (although for a girl with a Jewish mother and a Unitarian father I don’t really get the whole thing). In past years here in Philadelphia, Fat Tuesday has just been an excuse to get crazy and trash South Street. This in the first year in the last five where the bars along South Street are allowed to stay open until the normal closing hour of 2 am. Hopefully people will be well-behaved.

All the partying and revelry aside, there is one tradition on this day I can really get behind, and that’s the tradition of eating pancakes. I first heard about this practice several years ago in an aside from a friend. She mentioned that she and her roommate were having pancakes for dinner, because it was Fat Tuesday, and when I turned to her with a puzzled expression she explained that it was traditional to have pancakes before Lent started, to use the eggs and fat that were to be given up for the fast. Then she shrugged and said that Lent wasn’t really her thing, but she enjoyed the pancakes.

Image credit: The Department

Related posts:

1. Shots fired Tuesday evening
2. Dairyland
3. Philly Roller Girls
4. Happy Valentine’s Day
5. Another reason Wawa rules all