There’s one day of the year when many of us flip for pancakes.

Whether you call it Shrove Tuesday, Carnival, Fastnacht or Fat Tuesday, in many Christian calendars, it’s the day when we eat rich foods, using fats, sugar and eggs before Lent begins.

In northern Europe, centuries ago, this feast coincided with a time of scarcity. It’s when meats kept for winter began to spoil and spring crops weren’t ready for harvest.

This feasting season is also Carnival. The festival’s name comes from the Latin word “carnivale,” which may mean “remove meat” or “farewell to meat.” Meat wasn’t the only thing absent during the Lenten fast, as other animal-derived foods such as eggs and milk were also avoided.

During Fat Tuesday, many Scandinavians enjoy cream-filled buns, sometimes also filled with almond paste or jam.

Doughnut-like fritters are found throughout Europe, such as fastnacht in Germany and malasadas in Portugal. Different Italian regions have crispy, ribbon-like fried pastry known by different names, including chiacchiere in Naples, cenci in Tuscany, and crostoli in the Veneto.

Not all Fat Tuesday foods are sweet. You’ll find doubles (chickpea curry on fried flatbreads) in Trinidad and Tobago, and tiropita (cheese pies) in Greece.

In Estonia, bowls of split pea soup with pearl barley and smoked pork are ladled out. While in Iceland, Saltkjöt og baunir, a hearty stew made with mutton or lamb, yellow split peas, and root vegetables is served.

In Canada, and other Commonwealth countries, pancakes mark Shrove Tuesday, with regional twists.

In the U.K. and Ireland, pancakes are served with a squeeze of lemon and sugar. In Goa, alle belle is filled with a mixture of spiced palm sugar and coconut.  

Here in Canada, some Newfoundlanders add small trinkets or coins to the batter, with whichever you find foretelling your future.

Beyond the flapjack

Crêpes at Café du Monde, Cambridge

While some see crêpes as thin pancakes, there’s a key reason why they aren’t.

“In a pancake you’ll put baking powder, so it fluffs up. In a crêpe, you don’t. So that’s a big difference with the ingredient right there,” said Nadia Dragusanu, owner of Cambridge’s Café du Monde Crêperie.

While American-style spongey pancakes use heat or moisture-activated leaveners (or a combination of buttermilk and leaveners) to produce lift, crêpe batter is more like those for traditional UK pancakes, Dutch pannekoek, and German Dutch babies.

Batter is poured and spread almost paper thin on a hot griddle, delicately lifted and turned while cooking, and folded around sweet or savoury fillings.

“If you can think it up, you can put it in. That’s what I like about it. It’s so versatile,” said Dragusanu.

Soufflé Pancakes at Fuwa Fuwa, Waterloo

A global phenomenon for a few years, soufflé-making techniques give Japanese-style soufflé pancakes their characteristic height.

“These (soufflé pancakes) are very fluffy and airy. When you bite into them, they kind of just melt in your mouth,” said Waterloo Fuwa Fuwa franchisee, Jimmy Vu.

Rather than mix and pour batter to cook, soufflé pancakes use a more involved technique.

“We take the time to beat the egg whites, to hand folding them into the batter, to even flipping the pancake on the griddle. Everything is done with such delicate timing and precision.,” explained Vu.

Vu said each order takes 25 minutes to make, including whisking time. Fresh off the griddle, the pancakes can be three to seven centimetres high, but, like a soufflé, contracts as it cools.

Pączki at Nougat Bakery, Kitchener and Waterloo

Rather than with pancakes, in Poland, celebrations begin the Thursday before, with pączki.

“We celebrate Fat Thursday, because it gives us more time to celebrate until Tuesday,” Jolanta Konduros co-owner of Kitchener’s Nougat Bakery. “Thursday, when you eat pączki, you will have good luck.”

Pączki’s enriched dough sets them apart from regular jam-filled doughnuts.

“Pączki are made out of flour, butter, eggs, little bit of rum, and rolled by hand,” said Konduros. “The rum is because we want to prevent the grease from [being absorbed] in the dough … that’s one of the things that prevents them being greasy.”

The traditional fried version is brought in, but Nougat’s baker, Mariola Tłok, makes baked ones made with an alcohol-free recipe. Whether fried or baked, filling flavours include raspberry, strawberry, cream, plum, and rose.