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John's Blog

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Monday, February 27, 2006

Fastnacht Day

Where I grew up, there was a tradition that was pure Pennsylvania Dutch which was celebrated as you headed into Shrove Tuesday. The idea was that before Lent began, you would whip up a batch of tasty donuts, called fastnachs. Originally they were made from a deep-fried, yeast raised potato dough, but God only knows what the ones you get in supermarkets were made of. The idea was that for Lent, you would be forbidden from eating rich things, so you would use up all the ingredients and have one last fling. That was it's origin at least, since most people I knew seldom gave up anything for Lent, but we did love to eat fastnachts.

I really wasn't aware that in most of the rest of the world, a similar ritual occurs, but they call it Pancake Day. Or that this is yet another case of a pagan celebration re-purposed as a Christian tradition.

All I know is that I'm really craving a fastnacht right now! AND that you can get FREE PANCAKES! at IHOP!
|| JM, 12:09 AM

1 Comments:

Nope. Don't know that one. But it was around this time of year that the Boy Scouts used to have their annual 'Bean Supper' when I was a kid. As for Lent well, we were Swedish Lutherans, so we just sort of drifted into Lent and then forgot it was going on...until Easter...when suddenly we could have HAM!! Without Jesus we could never have ham. The Jews and the Muslims STILL can't have ham. But Jesus vacuumed it clean for us Lutherans...
Blogger Neil Shakespeare, at 8:36 PM  

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