PANCAKES!

Last night we celebrated Pancake Day at Liz's. Liz played with her frying pan and made millions and millions of pancakes which were eaten by the hungry hoardes occupying her kitchen. They were very good pancakes too made with duck eggs from the Farmers' Market... mmmm

On my way over I fired off text messages to my family (only one of whom has so far replied - harumph!) because pancakes are an intrinsically 'family' thing to me: My folks have the best pancake pan in the known universe and bottles of ancient homemade raspberry vinegar which, while it might not sound it, but is actually one of the very best things ever to put on pancakes. Pancake Day was a very special occasion as a child, probably ranks up there in my memory with family birthdays and xmas, only it was for everyone at once (unlike birthdays) and Dad enjoyed it too (unlike xmas which used to just make him grumpy) which made it better than those!

When I left home to go to University, the first couple of years' Pancake Days went by unmarked - I remember the puzzled voices of family members down University payphone recievers, how could I have forgotten? Not that they were repudiating me for a lapsed observance, just that they were shocked I could have forgotten about such a big day. Since we all began living sepperate adult lives my family and I have through necessity made Pancake Day more of a movable feast. My big brother has a particular knack for knowing just when to suggest we make pancakes (you do have to be careful not to let them become an everyday food after all) but I still very seldom make them myself (even though I actually have a pretty good pan of my own nowadays, as well as good pancake-making genes.)

I'd never really thought about it until I was walking back to the car from Liz's last night, but pancakes for me are a deeply and intrinsically social thing: they're almost a kind of ritualised familial inclusion, and as much as anything that's why I only seem to ever eat them with groups of people that I love. Pancakes with 'the Gang' last night was probably the first time that Pancake Day has really felt like Pancake Day since I left home in 1996. My own oddball (and subconscious) emotional/ritual perspective on this particular food probably also explains why certain Canadian friends bitching about what constitutes a "real" pancake when I was making some for them last year upset me as much as it did.

Isn't it great when you manage to make sense of yourself?