Happy Fat Tuesday!! Special Dispensation to Eat Some Waffles!

French_Peasant

I hereby give anyone who loves waffles special dispensation to eat a huge pile today! + Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow begins Lent.

Waffles, pancakes, crepes, etc. are a traditional food item for Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday. According to the NY Times:

"Pancakes, crepes, fritters, crullers and waffles, sometimes consumed competitively in vast quantities, became traditional foods for Mardi Gras celebrations. In England, Shrove Tuesday pancake races and pancake-tossing contests are still held in rural areas. Berliner Pfannkrapfen, a type of jelly doughnut also called Carnival Doughnuts in Germany and Austria, accompany the celebration called Fasching and are not unlike the triangular potato dough fastnacht doughnuts popular among the Pennsylvania Dutch of this country.

The Belgians gorge on waffles, sometimes baked on irons imprinted with religious symbols but always dripping custard and jam; the Italians fry crusty round zeppole for every carnival, and the Russians consume blini by the score before Lent, a time called ''maslyenitsa'' or butter week.

French street vendors sell puffy crullers called beignets d'Arles and they also eat pancakes before Lent. They make trick crepes, with fine thread embedded in the pancakes. The person who selects the sabotaged crepe receives a prize. French girls who could flip their crepes the highest without letting them fall on the floor were supposed to marry before the year was out."

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/13/nyregion/food-mardi-gras-fat-tuesday-live-it-up-eat-it-up.html

Also feel free to enjoy the delicious waffle zaniness in Bruegel's Battle of Carnival and Lent: