In America it was Super Tuesday, in Scotland it was Shrove Tuesday, but in Sweden it was Semlor Tuesday!
These are the same idea as us eating pancakes on the last day before lent, but I think these are even better (though you couldn’t fry one of these up as part of a full Scottish breakfast… or could you…?).
According to Wikipedia, a semla is “consists of a cardamom-spiced wheat bun which has its top cut off and insides scooped out and is then filled with a mix of the scooped-out bread crumbs, milk and almond paste, topped with whipped cream. The cut-off top is then put back as a lid and dusted with icing sugar.”
I’ll be eating Semlor for the next week.
And in Greece it was getting-pissed-Tuesday!
Nevertheless, over here the last day before lent we basically go into carnivore mode so as to ‘clean out’ the house of any meat that there is…I have two words that describe the last day before lent.
High cholesterol.
Cheers!
I heard that in Greece, they fly kites on the first day of lent. Any truth in this?
The first day of the 40 day lent is always a Monday. This is called ‘Clean Monday’, the ‘clean’ coming from ‘cleaning’ the body both from food and ‘sins’. On this ‘Clean’ Monday, the 1st day of 40 day lent, people usually eat vegetarian food and some shellfish.
The flying of the kite is not directly related to the religious theme of the day.
This ‘Clean’ Monday (99% of the time the weather is perfect on this day) marks both literally and symbolically the beginning of spring.
It is accustomed that day that you go out to the country side and enjoy your meal like a picnic or something.
At this point the flying kite comes into play. Since people are out in the country side feasting this is one of the celebratory customs. You could say it is a Pagan custom and not a Christian but I don’t really know where it origins.
So yes, people fly kites on the 1st day of lent but it doesn’t have anything to do with the actual lent.
I forgot to mention that this year Clean Monday is the 10th of March, so counting 40 days onwards you can find the Orthodox Easter Sunday! April 27th for those who are bad with numbers
I was thinking that February was a bit early for picnics outside etc. Good that you reminded me that easter is a month later in Orthodox countries, it’s the same in Bulgaria.
If I organised it just right, I could travel the world eating easter and pre-lent food. Chinese new year today, which is typically a time to eat as much as possible in the hope that you will also be rewarded with lots of food for the rest of the year.
Not really working out like that for me because today it’s already half past five, I haven’t had any lunch and it looks like I’ll be at work for a couple of hours more reinstalling computers with Ubuntu. Bloody Ubuntu!!!!