Why do we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday? Here we look at the traditions surrounding Pancake Day - and round up some suggestions for tempting alternatives to the tried-and-trusted lemon and sugar.Sejal SukhadwalaTraditionIn the UK, there is a much-loved tradition of making and eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, which falls between February 2 and March 9, depending on the date for Easter. Shrove Tuesday ('shrove' stems from old English word 'shrive', meaning 'confess all sins') is the day before Lent - which incidentally means both 'spring' and 'goodbye to meat'.According to Christian beliefs, Lent commemorates Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness, and observant Christians mark this period by fasting. So Shrove Tuesday was cleverly invented to use up the ingredients that were given up for Lent - milk, butter and, particularly, eggs - which may not be eaten again until Easter.Customs and celebrationsIn other parts of the world, Shrove Tuesday is marked by quite different celebrations. In New Orleans, for example, it is celebrated with the Mardi Gras, and in Rio de Janeiro with the equally raucous carnival. Other old customs include the annual pancake grease at London's Westminster school (schoolboys fighting for pancakes in return for a monetary reward); Mischief Night (breaking into people's houses in disguise and demanding pancakes); Lent Crocking or Lensharding (throwing old crockery at people's doors and asking for pancakes to be tossed back), and shroving - a visiting custom in which children sang or recited poetry in exchange for food or money. A popular shroving rhyme went like this:

'Knock, knock, the pan's hot
And we are coming a-shroving
For a piece of pancake
Or a piece of bacon
Or a piece of truckle cheese
Of your own making.'

Pancakes around the world

Just about every country has its own version of the pancake. Some of the best-known are: buckwheat flour galettes of Brittany, chickpea-flour socca of Nice, and the crêpes found all over France; chickpea flour farinata of Liguria, and chestnut flour necci from Lucca and Pistoia in Italy; sweet Cretan tiganítes of Greece; fragrant rosewater-spiked ataif of the Middle East; potato latkes and Ashkenazi cheese blintzes of Israel; Moroccan semolina baghrir; numerous spicy chickpea and black-eye bean pancakes of Africa; huge crisp wheat-flour and potato pancakes of the Netherlands; and Russian buckwheat-flour blinis.