Shrove Tuesday is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday which is the first day of Lent. It's a day of penitence, to clean the soul, and a day of celebration as the last chance to feast before Lent begins.\n\nShrove Tuesday is probably the Christian festival that the family enjoys most, after Christmas, of course.\n\nBut there's more to Shrove Tuesday than pigging out on pancakes or taking part in a public pancake race. The pancakes themselves are part of an ancient custom with deeply religious roots. \n\nPenitence \nShrove Tuesday gets its name from the ritual of shriving that Christians used to undergo in the past. In shriving, a person confesses their sins and receives absolution for them.\n\nWhen a person receives absolution for their sins, they are forgiven for them and released from the guilt and pain that they have caused them.\n\nIn the Catholic or Orthodox context, the absolution is pronounced by a priest. \n\nThis tradition is very old. Over 1000 years ago a monk wrote in the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes: \n\nIn the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him.\n\nShrove Tuesday celebrations \nShrove Tuesday is a day of celebration as well as penitence, because it's the last day before Lent. \n\nLent is a time of abstinence, of giving things up. So Shrove Tuesday is the last chance to indulge yourself, and to use up the foods that aren't allowed in Lent.\n\nGiving up foods: but not wasting them \nIn the old days there were many foods that observant Christians would not eat during Lent: foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods.\n\nSo that no food was wasted, families would have a feast on the shriving Tuesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn't last the forty days of Lent without going off.\n\nThe need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name Mardi Gras; meaning fat tuesday. Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as they were a dish that could use up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.\n\nThe origin of pancake racing \nPancake races are thought to have begun in 1445. A woman had lost track of the time on Shrove Tuesday, and was busy cooking pancakes in her kitchen.\n\nSuddenly she heard the church bell ringing to call the faithful to church for confession. The woman raced out of her house and ran all the way to church; still holding her frying pan and wearing her apron.\n\n\nGoing for gold in the pancake olympics \nOne of the most famous pancake races is held at Olney in Buckinghamshire over a 415 yard course. The rules are strict; contestants have to toss their pancake at both the start and the finish, as well as wearing an apron and a scarf. The race is followed by a church service.\n\nSince 1950 Olney has competed with Liberal in Kansas, which holds an identical race, to see which town can produce the fastest competitor. After the 2000 race, Liberal was leading with 26 wins to Olney's 24.