Shrove Tuesday Pancakes

I love this picture from a 1928 McCall's magazine! 

To me it looks like the mother's on the phone with her mother asking for her recipe for pancakes while her son wants her to hurry up with breakfast.

He is her son, isn't he? With the whitewall haircut? Surely that's not supposed to be her husband!

RH and I are ready to have pancakes anytime,  but on Shrove Tuesday seems to be the day for it, even if we're Baptists and Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and Lent were not part of our childhoods.

After years of reading Jan Karon's Mitford novels, I'm a literary Episcopalian who long ago found an old Book of Common Prayer that I love to read. 

While I don't truly observe the Lenten season, just knowing it follows this special day helps me remember to prepare my heart for Easter.  

So it was pancakes for breakfast this morning!

RH likes his with hot maple syrup.

And we both love to use this little brown jug by Hall for the maple syrup.

We found it years ago at a restaurant supply place that was down by the river in Nashville. Many's the time we went there rummaging through stacks of china with our first two children, who were totally bored!

The little brown jug goes with china from The Clock restaurant that we found there, filling in with a few pieces from eBay in later years.

All but one look like this plate that we have five of and two small platters, but we have one larger plate that RH claims that is ever so slightly different. 

 I don't believe we've ever bought pancake mix, not when the real thing is so easy. I've used the recipe for buttermilk pancakes from this old A World of Breads for decades. 

It's so simple and calls for 5 eggs although I've been known to put in as many as 8 when we had our own hens at the old place.

That's 4 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 teaspoons sugar, mixed together well. Add 5 large eggs, 1 quart of buttermilk and 1/4 cup melted butter.

Remember, you stir waffle batter well but only incorporate ingredients in pancake batter. Pancake batter should be a little lumpy just like cornbread batter.

And whether you like hot maple syrup as RH does, or cold blackberry jam as I do, you have yourself one fine breakfast.

I've also been drinking one small glass of  organic cranberry juice each morning with no added juices or sugar and is it ever tart! 

I've been off bacon for five weeks now until that baked potato last night and a couple of strips to go with the pancakes this morning so no more of that for a while.

But it sure tasted wonderful!

Tonight it's going to be Vincent Price's recipe for green split pea soup, another tradition for Shrove Tuesday, I learned.

Time to go check on it and cut a fresh pineapple to soak some slices in Kirsch for an hour. That will be battered in leftover pancake batter and turned into tonight's dessert.

Stay tuned, please!

Did you have pancakes this morning?