The table is set, the batter is mixed, the griddle is hot, and the butter and syrup are ready. This means you are prepared for National Pancake Day. This food holiday is observed each year on September 26.
National Pancake Day’s humble beginnings in 2005, originally started as Lumberjack Day.
- Pancakes have a long history, dated back to the times of Ancient Romans and it was believed in Medieval times that the first three pancakes cooked were sacred. They were each marked with a cross before being sprinkled with salt and then set aside to ward off evil.
- Maple syrup which is often used as a topping, was originally a sweet drink which was discovered by the Algonquin Indians.
- The first ready-mix food which was sold commercially was Aunt Jemima pancake flour. It was invented in 1889 in St. Joseph, Missouri.
- It is common in France to touch the handle of the frying pan and to make a wish while the pancake is turned, holding a coin in one hand.
- The first pancake recipe appeared in an English cookbook in the fifteenth century.
- World’s biggest pancake was cooked in Rochdale (Greater Manchester) in 1994, which was 49.3 feet in diameter, weighted three tons and had an estimated two million calories.
- The highest pancake toss measured 31 ft 1 in, and was achieved by Dominic Cuzzacrea (USA) at Walden Galleria Mall in Cheektowaga, New York.
- William Shakespeare favored pancakes by mentioning them in a couple of his plays
- One pancake fan ran a marathon while continually tossing a pancake for three hours, two minutes and twenty seven seconds.
- The Ancient Greeks made pancakes called tagenias meaning “frying pan“.
- The earliest attested references on tagenias (pancakes) are in the poems of the fifth century B.C. poets Cratinus and Magnes.
- The idea of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is more than 1,000 years old!
- “Flat as a pancake,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, has been a catchphrase since at least 1611.
- The most flips anyone has ever done with a pancake is 349 flips in two minutes, which was achieved by Dean Gould at Felixstowe, Suffolk in 1995.
- Pancakes outnumber the waffle five to one.
- In the United States, southerners eat the most pancakes, accounting for 32.5% of the pancake consumption.
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