How do you flip a flapjack — and why is the pancake so pivotal to the Calgary Stampede?
Other breakfasts of note include the First Flip (which kicks off many people's Stampede celebrations in downtown Calgary on the Thursday before Stampede starts), a vegan pancake breakfast, a pink pancake breakfast supporting cancer research, a green tea breakfast organized by a Japanese restaurant, and many, many more.
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Well, simply put, free food brings out people, and where there are crowds of people, politicians see opportunity.
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As Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt told Scott Strasser of Postmedia Calgary last year: The participation of politicians at Stampede breakfasts is practically a summer staple — and for obvious reason, says Bratt. While there is always the slight risk of a politician embarrassing themselves with a poor pancake-flipping technique or wardrobe faux pas, Bratt said the opportunity for a politician to attend a community breakfast is an easy, informal and fun way to interact with potential voters.
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Archives suggest Harry Hays — former Calgary mayor, MP and later senator — was the first politician to host large pancake breakfasts, starting around 1959. The events gave rise to the infamous Hays breakfasts at Heritage Park and his drink concoction known as Sillabub (fresh milk, ice and alcohol).
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They make for useful idioms, too. When something is very flat, it's flat as a pancake. When a first attempt at a task doesn't work out, it's noted that the first pancake is always spoiled. When a pilot makes an emergency landing and levels out close to the ground before dropping, it's a pancake landing. Pancake is also the name given to heavy makeup used by performers, often a matte powder compressed into a thin cake.
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Chinook Centre broke the record in 2025, just last week, for serving the largest number of pancakes in eight hours. They served 26,994 pancakes and it took them less than 4½ hours to do so.
According to Guinness, the world record for the largest pancake was set in 1994 in Manchester, England, when a three-tonne pancake was created, measuring just over 15 metres in diameter.
The Guinness record for eating 10 pancakes the fastest is 19.46 seconds.
Food Network host Bob Blumer broke another record in 2008 when he came to Calgary, flipping the most pancakes an hour: 559.
Pancakes, or a variation, can be found around the world, ranging from the buttermilk variety common in North America to a scallion pancake in China, a banana-made pancake in Uganda and a rice dessert pancake in the Philippines.
The most expensive pancake was made in 2014 to celebrate Shrove Tuesday in England. The $1,500 pancake dish included caviar, truffles, lobster and Dom Perignon hollandaise sauce.
A pancake can also be called a flapjack, griddlecake or hotcake. Crepes may have similar ingredients but are much thinner. Waffles also have similar ingredients, but often contain more sugar and/or fat, along with less milk, making for a thicker batter.
The Chinook Centre breakfast can draw crowds in the tens of thousands. The 2025 breakfast saw more than 35,000 people attend.
In years past, volunteering at the Chinook breakfast was such a fun, sought-after gig that corporate partners would draw names to determine which of their employees would be lucky enough to get to volunteer at the breakfast.
The first Chinook Centre breakfast occurred when a local radio station held a Stampede beard-growing contest. Chinook Centre agreed to host a pancake breakfast to coincide with the judging. By 5:30 a.m., people were lined up, awaiting breakfast. More than 10,000 people showed up. Organizers ran out of coffee. 'The pancake house nearby did a great business that day because people got tired of waiting for the free breakfast,' Don Thomas, former CFCN radio program director, recalled in a book about the shopping centre. 'The astronomical thing is that the breakfast is still going strong. We weren't looking to establish something that would last a half-century.'
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Japan Forward
2 hours ago
- Japan Forward
The Astonishing Brazenness of Shigeru Ishiba
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It is outrageous that the Prime Minister should be allowed to remain in his position just because such a flawed agreement has been reached. He should rightly announce his resignation as soon as possible. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba meets with US President Donald Trump in Kananaskis, western Canada, on June 16. (©Cabinet Public Relations Office) President Donald Trump has gone wild during his second term. He has taken a self-righteous approach of pressuring other countries by arbitrarily imposing tariffs on their exports to the US. A series of unjustified claims have emanated from the White House, such as blaming Japan for the lack of sales of American cars, which are imported tariff-free into Japan. Those claims contain glaring factual errors and are unacceptable. First, the Japan-US trade agreement concluded by Trump in his first administration confirmed that additional tariffs would not be imposed on Japanese motor vehicle imports. However, Trump has acted as if he were free to simply renege on this agreement. Wasn't that exactly why the Ishiba administration kept calling for the US to withdraw its high tariff measures? Of course, it was bound to be difficult to convince Trump to stop using tariffs only in the case of Japan. It is a weapon he obviously dearly loves, and concessions by Japan might have been unavoidable to a certain degree. However, that doesn't mean we can agree with Prime Minister Ishiba's self-adulation for having "achieved the largest reduction among countries with a trade surplus with the United States." It was evident all along that the US response would depend on a decision made by Trump personally. Nonetheless, Ishiba chose to leave it up to his Cabinet to manage. He displayed absolutely no initiative to negotiate directly with Trump in order to break the deadlock. Ishiba hardly deserves the plaudits he is awarding himself. Ishiba has also said that the two sides reached an agreement that was "in line with the national interests of both Japan and the United States." Objectively, however, how much has Japan improved its national interests compared to before the advent of the current Trump administration? The Prime Minister is prioritizing the expansion of investment in the United States. This should both create American jobs and boost profits for Japanese companies. He has offered explanations, such as "Government-affiliated financial institutions will be able to provide investments, loans, and loan guarantees of up to $550 billion" (approximately ¥80 trillion JPY). Ishiba also emphasized that, together, Japan and the US will build resilient supply chains in areas important to economic security. However, the expansion of investment in the US has been a trend among Japanese companies for some time. It is also natural that the two countries should strengthen cooperation in terms of economic security. However, we must be careful not to fall into the trap of investing to fulfill our promises to the US without fully considering the costs. In the agricultural sector, Japan will increase the amount of rice it imports from the US within the existing minimum access framework. Fortunately, Japan's farmers were not sacrificed through tariff reductions or other measures. Nonetheless, a careful assessment of the impact of the increased inflow of US rice on rice prices is needed. For Japanese companies, the fact remains that the 15% tariff will constitute a heavy burden. Nevertheless, the conclusion of the negotiations means they can finally rework their strategies for doing business with the US. Not only large companies but also subcontractors must remain undeterred by the high American tariff policy. Hopefully, they will go all out to improve productivity and develop new demand. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba explains the results of the Upper House election at a press conference. July 21 (©Sankei by Akira Konno). With the conclusion of the negotiations, the government will now face other issues, including those involving domestic policies. However, Prime Minister Ishiba should not use these as an excuse to remain in power. He failed to attain his self-set minimum target for the number of ruling party seats in both the Lower and Upper House elections. As a consequence, the ruling parties lost their majorities in both houses of the Diet. It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to promptly announce his resignation. Even after his meeting with three former prime ministers from his own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on July 23, Ishiba again reiterated his intention to remain in office. His brazenness is absolutely astonishing. It is unacceptable for him to continue to ignore the will of the Japanese people as expressed at the polls. There is a rising chorus of demands from LDP lawmakers and local organizations for Ishiba to step down. This is a totally understandable reaction since, if he is allowed to remain prime minister, the LDP will be completely abandoned by its support base. Moreover, unless the LDP and its ruling coalition partner, Komeito, actually force him to resign, Ishiba will likely lose even more support than he did in the recent Upper House election. If that happens, implementation of the Japan-US trade agreement could become uncertain, and the ruling parties' ability to clean house would be called into question. An extraordinary Diet session will be convened on August 1. The Diet will require a certain number of days to thoroughly deliberate on the new Japan-US agreement. That will not change, regardless of whether there is a prime ministerial election as well. (Read the editorial in Japanese.) Author: Editorial Board, The Sankei Shimbun Keywords/tags:
Japan Forward
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Inheritance Tax in Japanese Culture: Leave Something Behind!
Japanese inheritance tax, also called estate tax, is infamously the highest in the world. Asking Japanese friends about the tax, they say it is designed to prevent extremes of inequality and generational wealth from becoming unfair advantages for elites. I suspect the tax is also a lucrative source of government revenue. Indeed, they say that a family fortune disappears in three generations because of the tax. Only death and taxes are inevitable, so why not profit from each? This may be cynical, but Japan is the oldest society in the world, and in the coming decades, it will lose tens of millions of citizens. Since a significant number of people meet the threshold for inheritance tax, it's not a bad payday for a country struggling with debt, population decline, and a stagnant economy. Currently, the tax contributes merely a single-digit percentage to government revenues. However, it should grow in importance as the deductions decrease and the number of people passing away increases. 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There is something to be said for continuing something bigger than yourself. While I am hopefully a very long way from passing along any inheritance (if any), it does make me consider what to pass along to my own child. Neither a wad of cash nor the obligation of doing something he does not enjoy sounds like the ideal parting gift. But if he wants it, being able to pass along the opportunity to build upon something his father began is something that I would be interested in sharing. Ultimately, the next generation will do what they want. However, a conversation is in order, long before it's too late, about the legacy that a parent wants to leave and the future that a child wants to carry forward. That way, any assets or a business that remain to be passed on can be used to make the world a better place. A big, multi-generational group of families and friends at the Japanese garden in Nagano. (©Daniel Moore) Author: Daniel Moore Learn more about life in Japan through Daniel's essays .
Japan Forward
19 hours ago
- Japan Forward
Anti-Japan Protest Disbands Amid Security Law Probe
South Korean civic group Anti-Japan Action ceased its nearly decade-long sit-in protest on July 19 in front of the Statue of Peace near the former Japanese Embassy in Seoul. The protest began in early 2016 to oppose a bilateral agreement between Tokyo and Seoul on the comfort women issue. Sometimes referred to as the "comfort women statue," the first monument was erected in 2011 in Seoul to commemorate what the South Korean side describes as young women who were forcibly taken and sexually enslaved by the Japanese military during its colonial rule. The Japanese government has consistently denied the allegations. On July 19, the Anti-Japan Action announced it was temporarily suspending its activities, citing increasing government pressure. "We are now entering a new phase of struggle. But suspending the vigil at the statue does not mark the end of our movement," the group said. According to Yonhap News , Seoul Metropolitan Police had issued a fifth summons against Anti-Japan Action. "The crackdown is intensifying. We now intend to focus our efforts on confronting police repression," the group told the news agency. Anti-Japan activists occupy the space in front of the comfort women statue before the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on December 8, 2021. (© Sankei by Tatsuya Tokiyoshi) Just last month, the police arrested and questioned Anti-Japan Action's representative on suspicion of violating South Korea's National Security Act. Authorities suspect some of the organization's activities display pro-North Korean leanings and are probing possible links to the People's Democracy Party (PDP), a leftist South Korean political party. On the same day, the PDP also ended its one-person demonstration in front of the United States Embassy in Seoul. The party had maintained the protest since 2016, calling for the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula. Police are likewise investigating the party, which comprises the majority of the Anti-Japan Action members, on suspicion of violating the National Security Act by forming a subversive entity. On June 24, 2020, students sit around the comfort women statue in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, trying to protect it from a South Korean conservative civic group demanding its removal. (Sankei by Takahiro Namura) In July, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency raided the party's headquarters in Seoul and seized a mobile phone belonging to Han Myung-hee, PDP's former leader. Han and several other party members are under investigation. Article 7 of South Korea's National Security Act stipulates that praising, encouraging, or propagating the activities of an anti-state organization or an individual acting under its direction is punishable by up to seven years in prison. Meanwhile, members of the National Action for the Abolition of the Comfort Women Act gathered at the site on Wednesday, calling for the statue's removal. The group has obtained permits to hold rallies next to the Statue of Peace since February 2023, but was unable to proceed due to Anti-Japan Action's occupation. "Until now, the police had forcibly divided the rally zones around the statue without our consent, citing potential clashes between our group and the Anti-Japan Action," the group said. "We will now hold weekly rallies beside the statue, calling for its complete removal and continuing to expose the comfort women fraud." Author: Kenji Yoshida
