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Pancake Week

It is a Russian national holiday that is celebrated 40 days before the Easter.

This year it will be February 27 - March 5.

The origin of this holiday, probably, dates back to pagan times when people celebrated the beginning of the Spring. The Orthodox Church has a different opinion on this, claiming that it has some Christian roots and meaning in it, too, but I am not sure it is the point simply because even Easter itself derives from pre-Christian times and has not much to do with Christianity.

Well, in any case, Pancake week is a holiday that comes at the end of winter and it is supposed to be a welcoming of the spring.
As it is seen from its very name, it has to do with pancakes.

A round, hot, yellow pancake is, of course a symbol of the Sun - round, hot and yellow. In Old Russia they baked pancakes in honour of the Sun, like encouraging the Sun to appear and to stay on the sky.

The holiday is going for a week during which people eat really a lot: mostly pancakes with different fillings (caviar, cabbage, meat, soft cheese, etc.) and spend days visiting each other and eating hot pancakes with hot tea, playing and having fun outdoors.
In Old Russia the fun usually included games (like snow castle battles. That is they built a snow castle and one team tried to capture it while another team stayed inside the castle, fighting back), also jumping over the fire, also burning a large straw doll that represented Winter on the last day of the holiday.

Each day of the Pancake week has its own name, because traditionally all days were scheduled for family visits: like on a certain day you go to visit your mother-in-law, on a certain day your mother-in-law comes to visit you, etc, but of course now people do not follow it.

After a week of over-eating, come 40 days of a really strict feast what is called Great Feast. It preceeds the Easter and during it a lot of food is not allowed: meat, fish, eggs, anything that has animal origin, even milk and eggs. Two days a week, on Wednesday and Friday, if I am not mistaken, you're not supposed to eat at all, "till the first star", that is till after the sunset.
Then comes a holiday of Easter, but this is another story.

Getting back to the Pancake Week.
Russian pancakes are thin, flat and large (size of a frying pan they are made on). Probably, the more correct word for them would be crepes.
The filling you do not mix inside the dough, but prepare separately, so they are served with the pancakes on the table.
You put a pancake on your plate, put the filling you want in the middle of the pancake, and wrap or roll it and then eat.

Traditional Russian pancakes are made with addition of the buckwheat flour or sometimes on whole buckwheat flour.
My favourite pancakes are made of pure wheat flour, they are rich and really tasty.
If anyone is interested, let me know, I can ask for recipes and put them here.

Edited: Klausse on 18th Feb, 2006 - 5:18pm

Week Pancake

Klausse, this sounds wonderful! I've never heard of this celebration before, thank you so much for sharing. If you don't mind, I would really enjoy seeing some recipes.

Roz

Pancake Week Reviews Consumer & Travel Family Culture

Thank you, Roz!

Here are some recipes I fished out of some book about traditional Russian kitchen.

General guidelines
(sorry, if I mention things that you already know.)

1. General proportions: 1 glass of liquid for 1 glass of flour.
The dough should not be too thick. Neither too watery.

2. First you dilute yeast in 1/2 glass of warm water or milk, making sure there are no lumps.
Pour it in a bowl and add there 1/2 of flour (mixed if more than one type of flour is used; you should add it gradually, constantly stirring it in)
Mix it all well and put in a warm place to rise up.

3. When it rised up (takes from 30 minutes to 1 hour), add butter, egg yolks, sour cream, sugar, salt, the rest of the flour (gradually, stirring it in constantly), the rest of liquid.

4. Leave it for a while in a warm place to rise up the second time (you'll see when it gets all puffed)

5. Beat egg whites and add them to the dough (stirring them in in movements that my book describes as "from bottom to top", hopefully it says something to you...)
Add cream, if the recipe has it.

6. Pancakes are made on iron frying pans that should be heated beforehand.

7. Before pouring the dough on it, you should spread some butter or oil on the pan's surface (my mother does it with a potato cut in half and put on the fork. She dips the potato in oil and then brushes the pan with it).

8. Pour the dough on the frying pan, fry, turn to the other side.

The recipes:

1.
Wheat flour - 500 grms / 1.1 pound
milk - 0,6 liter / 20.3 ounces
butter - 50 grms / 0.11 pounds
8 eggs
one spoonful of each:
yeast
salt
sugar

2.
wheat flour - 200 grms / 0.44 pounds
buckwheat flour - 300 grms /
milk - 0,6 liter / 20.3 ounces
cream - 0,3 liter / 10.2 ounces
sour cream - 100 grms / 0.22 pounds
butter - 50 grms / 0.11 pounds
3 eggs
one spoonful of each:
yeast
salt
sugar

3.
wheat flour - 300 grms / 0.66 pounds
buckwheat flour - 300 grms / 0.66 pounds
milk - 0,3 liter / 10.2 ounces
water - 0,3 liter / 10.2 ounces
butter - 100 grms / 0.22 pounds
2 eggs
one spoonful of both:
yeast
salt

Hope I converted it correct.

There are plenty of other recipes, too,(takes 3 pages in the book) but I guess you get the drift. Just experiment

Oh, I just thought the right name for the Holiday would be Butter Week... or Pancake Week, it is fine, too. It's impossible to literally translate simply because thre is no corresponding English word

Week Pancake

Boy, I wish here in the UK we had a pancake week! we do have a "pancake Tuesday" which is once a year, and this year it falls on the Tuesday 28th February, so I'm really looking forward to it, as I love pancakes!
It is always the day before Ash Wednesday on the Christian calender.
normally sweet pancakes are eaten, with the traditional ones being sugar and lemon juice and squeeze a fresh orange over, but these day, more and more flavours are experimented with.My favourite being tinned cherries and ice cream! (maybe it's a good job we only have it for one day a year!)-- My health would probably suffer!
Hope you enjoy your pancake week!

Maybe I should add that our recipe is slightly different too, it is--250g of white flour, 1/2 litre of milk, 3 eggs, and a pinch of salt.You put all the flour in a large mixing bowl, make a "well"in the middle of the bowl, ie-push all the flour to the outside.In the middle of the bowl add the salt, and break the eggs into the middle also. Gently fold the eggs into the flour, and then slowly add the milk a bit at a time until the batter mixture isn't too runny, but not too thick. Cover the mixture for about 2 hours, as this improves it.
The mixture is then put a bit at a time into a shallow frying pan, turning the mixture over once, so both sides are golden brown.--Simple but nice!

Edited: DianeC on 19th Feb, 2006 - 3:41pm

Week Pancake

Well it's that day in the year again here in the Uk!
I had my usual cherry and vanilla ice cream pancake, but I also had a maple syrup and sugar one, mmm, they were good!
Good job we don't eat anything else with them, just the pancakes as a sweet meal.
pity we only celebrate for one day every year!