Good day!  Here is a list of churches in Algoma Deanery having pancake suppers (that I know about). But first, why do we eat pancakes on this day and what exactly is “Shrove Tuesday” anyway?

Shrove Tuesday gets its name from an old word we don’t use much anymore…”shrive”.  To shrive is to present yourself to a priest to confess your sins, be assigned a penance, and be given absolution.  The tradition of shriving right before the start of Lent is very old…we have it writing from about 1000 years ago (a monk wrote, in the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes, “In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him.”) If it was put into print at that time, then you can be sure the practice was actually much older.

So, why pancakes?  Since Lent is a time of abstinence, families needed to use up all the foods that would go bad before the 40 days were over – foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and dairy products. The need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name for Shrove Tuesday: Mardi Gras, meaning “fat Tuesday”.  Pancakes are the perfect (and delicious) way to  use up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.

Here is the info I have about pancake suppers:

St. George’s, Echo Bay…4pm-6:30pm; $9.00

St. James, Goulais River (at the Goulais River United Church)…5:30pm-7:00pm

St. Saviour’s, Blind River…4:30pm-6:00pm

Church of the Redeemer, Thessalon…5:00pm-7:00pm; by donation

Zion Lutheran, Sault Ste Marie…5:00pm; by donation

St. Peter’s, Sault Ste Marie…5:00pm – 7:00pm; adults $8, children $5; all you can eat pancakes and sausage.