I knew that the words Mardi Gras meant "Fat Tuesday" (OK - Tuesday Fat) in French, and marked the last day before Lent, hence the partying. What I didn't know was why the Gras was in the term. Why IS Tuesday "Fat"? Why not call it "Last Tuesday"? Today on CNN.com, I read the answer.

The annual Carnival season winds up on Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, which is marked by parades and street parties through the city. In stricter days, Mardi Gras was the last chance to use up all the fat in the larder and kick it up a bit before the austerity and fasting of Lent. - CNN.com

Now it makes sense.
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02-27-06, 09:05 AM
frankvan
I get that Mardi Gras part, but in our house, growing up with a Liverpudlian mother, the day was called either 'Pancake Tuesday" or "Shrove Tuesday" ? Fred, Bedstore, Karrow, et al - what's a shrove and why pancakes ?

02-27-06, 09:06 AM
Sherasi
I also wondered why it was called that and I also wondered why fachnaght (sp?) were so popular that day (in my region anyway)... I guess because it is deep fried and also uses up the fat.

02-27-06, 09:10 AM
Sherasi

quote:
Originally posted by frankvan:
I get that Mardi Gras part, but in our house, growing up with a Liverpudlian mother, the day was called either 'Pancake Tuesday" or "Shrove Tuesday" ? Fred, Bedstore, Karrow, et al - what's a shrove and why pancakes ?


"Whats a 'shrove'?":

In the Christian calendar, Shrove Tuesday is the English name for the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which in turn marks the beginning of Lent. In many solidly Roman Catholic countries in Europe and the Americas, this is the last day of Carnival.


"why pancakes"

In Ireland, Australia, and Canada, Shrove Tuesday is known as Pancake Tuesday, while in Britain it is popularly known as Pancake Day. In both regions the traditional pancake is a very thin one (like a French crêpe) which is served immediately sprinkled with caster sugar (superfine sugar in the United States) and a dash of fresh lemon juice or alternatively drizzled with Golden syrup.

Pancakes are eaten to use up milk and eggs, which are not eaten during Lent, and would otherwise spoil during this period.

02-27-06, 09:40 AM
Fourbrick2
Frankvan

quote:
I get that Mardi Gras part, but in our house, growing up with a Liverpudlian mother, the day was called either 'Pancake Tuesday" or "Shrove Tuesday" ? Fred, Bedstore, Karrow, et al - what's a shrove and why pancakes ?


I knew the was a reason for us both to have similar views on life, Frank. My forebears were all from Liverpool as am I. Wink Do you know from which part?

Regarding "Shrove"- to shrive is to free yourself from sin, so that would seem to be the source of the noun.

02-27-06, 10:11 AM
juanruiz
Of equal interest is the word "carnival," which comes from the Latin expression carne vale, literally "meat goodbye."

02-27-06, 01:58 PM
Karrow

quote:
Originally posted by frankvan:
I get that Mardi Gras part, but in our house, growing up with a Liverpudlian mother, the day was called either 'Pancake Tuesday" or "Shrove Tuesday" ? Fred, Bedstore, Karrow, et al - what's a shrove and why pancakes ?


Sher has answered the question on why it's called Pancake Tuesday, or Pancake Day as it is more commonly known as around here..

As Fourbrick says, Shrove Tuesday got it's name from shriving - the act of confessing your sins - as it's the last day before Lent and so traditionally one of penitence.

Good to hear that you have good Northern British blood in you Frank. Smile

02-28-06, 07:54 AM
frankvan

quote:
I knew the was a reason for us both to have similar views on life, Frank. My forebears were all from Liverpool as am I. Do you know from which part?



Unfortunately, No! I have long suspected that my mother, along with a younger and an older sister were sent to Canada in some sort of public, (church ?) program for poor children. The eldest died in the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918. I made some attempt to obtain information in recent years through computer genealogy, to no avail.

02-28-06, 08:15 AM
Fourbrick2
Frank, If you would like let me have her full maiden name and date of birth. I might be able to trace something for you from this side.
It's always interesting to know the family details.(I found out I had three half sisters when I was sixty three!)

02-28-06, 11:24 AM
Sherasi
Another place to investigate from this end is the Mormon church. They get family information on EVERYONE! They have a serious geneology research thing going!

02-28-06, 12:32 PM
frankvan
Fourbrick, here is what little I know about her:
Florence Lomax; born Jan 28, 1894 Liverpool
Died June 6, 1954 in Baltimore, MD
Father John Lomax Mother Helen Sherwood
Siblings: Edith died in Flu epidemic 1918,in Canada
Emma ? Brother Arthur blinded in Boer War
If you can find any information I will be grateful. I gave up a couple of years ago, but it's hard from this distance.

03-02-06, 12:30 PM
kittypal
Here in Utopia it is Fat Tuesday or Pazcki Day, pronounced PUNCHKI for some reason.

03-02-06, 03:57 PM
DorianGreyed
Paczki Day is a Polish Easter celebration on the Polish Fat Thursday in preparation for Lent. A Paczki is a jelly filled bun and was originally made to consume all perishable food items before the forty day fast. The Poles have always had a strong Catholic background and it has helped them through times of annexation and unstable governments. Celebrations such as Paczki Day bond individuals together and promote a solid social structure. It is still a recognized holiday in Poland and has been slowly spreading to the United States where it is celebrated on Fat Tuesday. - People of the World



So Pazcki Day got its name just as Pancake Tuesday did.

03-03-06, 03:08 PM
emkayess

quote:
Pazcki Day, pronounced PUNCHKI

The "a" in Pazcki has a "cedile-comma" and is pronounced nasally like "own" which comes out like "u". Polish has a different charset (ISO-8859-2)rather than Latin1(ISO-8859-1)
Anyone know how to mix the two charsets?

03-03-06, 04:41 PM
DorianGreyed
"Anyone know how to mix the two charsets?"

I mixed them once with some Polish vodka, and had a hangover you wouldn't believe. Never again!

03-03-06, 05:35 PM
kittypal
Thanks emkayess, I always wondered how they got the punchkey out of pazcki!

03-04-06, 12:33 PM
Michal

quote:
Originally posted by emkayess:

quote:
Pazcki Day, pronounced PUNCHKI

The "a" in Pazcki has a "cedile-comma" and is pronounced nasally like "own" which comes out like "u". Polish has a different charset (ISO-8859-2)rather than Latin1(ISO-8859-1)
Anyone know how to mix the two charsets?


I think Microsoft uses (or used to use) Windows-1250 insead of ISO-8859-2 and Windows-1252 instead of ISO-8859-1.

I fink you can mix all the characters in Windows XP. At least on Polish Windows XP I can right Polish characters, German ones (umlauts), French (with accents) and I can even display Chinese or Japanese text (writing is more difficult but you can do it if you know how).
I suppose you need to have the propper regional setting selected. Try following the instructions on http://www.cuyamaca.net/david.detwiler/Spanish_Keyboard_XP.pdf but instead of Spanish choose Polish Language and Polish (programmers) Keyboard (if it's available, perhaps it's not available in the English version or you have to install aditional components).

I don't really like pączki, but I ate one pączek this Fat Tuesday, because it was filled with chocolate. I prefer Polish Vodka or Polish Sausage ;-)

Is there really no English name for paczki? Hmm same thing as with pierogi.
No wait, I thought paczki is donuts in English, right?

03-06-06, 06:19 AM
emkayess
Hi Michal, the Windows-1250/1252 is Eastern European but it lacks one character for Polish - capital s-acute even so it has the lowercase s-acute. So you are probably using the ISO-8859-2.
What I meant by "mixing" is how to drop a letter or a word into text written in another charset.
Like you did.
Quote - paczki is donuts in English - Quote
Nope - Donuts have holes in the middle - paczki don't.

03-06-06, 12:00 PM
FredPuli

quote:
Originally posted by emkayess:

Quote - paczki is donuts in English - Quote
Nope - Donuts have holes in the middle - paczki don't.


Wrong! Big Grin Or not? Donut is just 'doughnut' written in simplified spelling. A doughnut in America has a hole in the middle i.e it's like a ring. A British doughnut looks rather like what is being described above, except that it is not cut in half. It is spherical,a 'solid' ball, made of a kind of soft cake dough and is covered in sprinkled sugar. It has jam inside. The jam is injected into the warm dough during manufacture so that it is a sort of semi-liquid core to the doughnut. In that sense there is a 'hole in the middle', the cavity in the centre of the ball which is the doughnut.You need to take care when eating a doughnut because there is always the risk that , in biting into it, you'll squirt the jam out all over yourself.

03-06-06, 01:08 PM
frankvan
What Fred describes as a British doughnut or donut is what we call a jelly donut, or jelly doughnut, and they also squirt jelly on you!

03-06-06, 03:02 PM
emkayess

Krispy Kreme authority
All fat fried shapes are donuts!!
I don't play well with others and think donuts must have holes. I have been wrong before.
varieties

03-06-06, 03:30 PM
DorianGreyed
Of course doughnuts have holes. Where else could they get the doughnut holes that are sold? Confused

03-06-06, 04:45 PM
babthrower
You guys! Roll Eyes Lucky I'm here before you get even more mixed up.

Doughnuts are little cakes of dough fried in lard. (OUD).

American doughnuts are actually 'dough-naughts', zeros made of dough. (Old fashioned term for zero was 'naught'.) Recently shortened to 'donuts'.
Source

And as for the donut holes sold, what do you get when you remove the contents of a void from a naught? Naught a lot! So what do you get when you sell them? Even less.

And don't ever buy a franchise from DG!

03-06-06, 06:56 PM
FredPuli
Sorry Babs but Webster's Dictionary gives 'donut' as a variant of 'doughnut' and the etymology of doughnut as 'dough + nut'. Nothing there , in the American dictionary, about it being a corruption of 'dough + naught or nought'. Of course, you could always argue that 'nut' refers not to 'a small rounded biscuit or cake e.g ginger nut, doughnut' or 'a small, usually oval, piece of food, used in cooking' ( both OED) or 'any of various devices resembling a nut' (Webster) but to the nut that goes on a threaded bolt. That 'nut' must always have a hole in (and the hole usually goes right through it). Wink

03-06-06, 07:05 PM
babthrower

quote:
Originally posted by FredPuli:
Sorry Babs but Webster's Dictionary ... ...

Did you check my source, Fred? Smile

03-06-06, 07:25 PM
FredPuli

quote:
Originally posted by babthrower:

quote:
Originally posted by FredPuli:
Sorry Babs but Webster's Dictionary ... ...



Did you check my source, Fred? Smile

I looked: where in it do I find 'donut' or 'doughnut' ? Confused

03-06-06, 07:28 PM
frankvan
My mother always made doughnuts with holes, but she didn't fry the holes, she mixed the dough back in to the main supply. The purpose for the holes was to prevent the centers from being undercooked. And, babs, i saw nothing in your link that mentions donuts or doughnuts; and no health conscious American (Canadian?) uses LARD since my mother's day, assuming one can find it anywhere. Roll Eyes

03-06-06, 07:34 PM
FredPuli
Gracie Allen, she of Burns and Allen, told a long story which contained the comment that if only her brother had been eating doughnuts he'd have been alive today. [Cue: George Burns to ask how and why] Because he wouldn't have been hit by the truck...

All right. Now how should the accident have been avoided, according to Gracie? Big Grin

03-06-06, 07:46 PM
babthrower
Okay.

(Sigh! I hate explaining jokes!)

My whole response was a play on words. It was DG's fault, he started it, talking about selling the holes.

Doughnuts may have holes. Holes are 'nothings'. Zero represents nothing a.k.a. 'nought'.

So a dough 'nought' is ....

Anyway, the 'source' I referred you to was the 'false etymology' site.

A false etymology is a 'made up' origin of a word. e.g. butterfly does not come from 'flutterby', although some have said that it does.

So: I made a joke on a false etymology of doughnut, and 'confessed' by sending you to that site, as a clue.

(Oh god, I'm starting to sound like Tsaeb!)

03-06-06, 08:15 PM
DorianGreyed
"It was DG's fault, he started it..."

I get blamed for everything in this house.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,