My husband's family are the only people I know who truly celebrate Ground Hog Day-- I mean beyond the token action of watching the movie by the same name. They have Ground Hog Day traditions, which as much as I dearly love them, I thought was completely bizarre when I first joined the family. The first tradition isn't that strange, they eat "ground hog" (sausage) and pancakes for dinner. I can understand this one. But the second tradition is the strange one. After eating dinner they take all the leftover pancakes, which are usually a lot because they make extras, and throw them on top of the fridge. Yes, really. The rules are that you have to make a wish, then stand about 10 feet away from the fridge with your back turned and throw your pancake over your shoulder and try to get it to land on top of the fridge. If your throw is successful then your wish will come true, if not you keep trying till you succeed. It is a really fun tradition that usually ends up in lots of giggles and flying pancakes.
I really have NO idea where this tradition came from or why it is associated with Ground Hogs Day, and Jon and his sister didn't know either. So if anyone happens to have any insights that might explain it, I would be interested to know. But it does leave me curious to know if other people have Ground Hog Day traditions, besides just watching the movie, or if my in-laws are just wonderfully and beautifully unique?
Oh and Happy Ground Hog Day!
3 comments:
I think the pancake throwing thing comes from our family. When we moved to Louisiana, we visited a Cajun museum in Lafayette, Louisiana, and in the museum I read an intepretive panel about holidays that talked about a special tradition on Feb. 2 where Cajuns would eat pancakes and throw one on the armoire for good luck. I thought this sounded fun and later I tried to find more information about it in the local public library. I couldn't find anything and the librarians couldn't either, so I telephoned the museum. I described the tradition to the curator, and she said, "I've never heard of that." She didn't believe me when I told her I'd read it in her museum, so she took my phone number and called me back about an hour later to tell me that she had, indeed, found the interpretive panel I had described but that she had no idea where the information had come from and that she had never heard of the tradition before.
So we figure it's a Cajun tradition that Cajuns never do.
Incidentally, Eleanor was very distressed this year when we started throwing pancakes, and she refused to participate.
You should have asked your husband where the tradition came from :)
First of all, Annette is absolutely right: it came from her family and that is all that really matters.
But...apparently its loosely linked to Shrove Tuesday and Carnival. Read this:
Tradition
In the UK, there is a much-loved tradition of making and eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, which falls between February 2 and March 9, depending on the date for Easter. Shrove Tuesday ('shrove' stems from old English word 'shrive', meaning 'confess all sins') is the day before Lent - which incidentally means both 'spring' and 'goodbye to meat'.
According to Christian beliefs, Lent commemorates Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness, and observant Christians mark this period by fasting. So Shrove Tuesday was cleverly invented to use up the ingredients that were given up for Lent - milk, butter and, particularly, eggs - which may not be eaten again until Easter.
Customs and celebrations
In other parts of the world, Shrove Tuesday is marked by quite different celebrations. In New Orleans, for example, it is celebrated with the Mardi Gras, and in Rio de Janeiro with the equally raucous carnival.
Other old customs include the annual pancake grease at London's Westminster school (schoolboys fighting for pancakes in return for a monetary reward); Mischief Night (breaking into people's houses in disguise and demanding pancakes); Lent Crocking or Lensharding (throwing old crockery at people's doors and asking for pancakes to be tossed back), and shroving - a visiting custom in which children sang or recited poetry in exchange for food or money. A popular shroving rhyme went like this:
'Knock, knock, the pan's hot
And we are coming a-shroving
For a piece of pancake
Or a piece of bacon
Or a piece of truckle cheese
Of your own making.'
Retrieved from this url http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/news_and_events/events_pancakeday.shtml
Sorry, I thought I'd ask you about it-- but I guess I must have forgot if you told me! I'm glad to know there is a method to your family's madness!
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