Latest news with #ShroveTuesday
Calgary Herald
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Calgary Herald
How do you flip a flapjack — and why is the pancake so pivotal to the Calgary Stampede?
Article content 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. Article content Article content Well, simply put, free food brings out people, and where there are crowds of people, politicians see opportunity. Article content 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. Article content Article content 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). Article content Article content 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. Article content 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.' Article content Article content
Time Out
14-05-2025
- General
- Time Out
You'll find a carving trolley here that's almost as famous as their regal regulars
If you're seeking a historical feast, you've come to the right place. One of London's most elderly restaurants, Wiltons has been in the game since 1742. Beginning life as simple shellfish mongers, Wiltons became a proper restaurant in 1841, and, after numerous address changes, moved into their current premises in 1984. Still, 40+ years in the same room is pretty good going for a city that turns restaurants over like pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. Foodie lore runs deep at this London institution; they supplied oysters to Queen Victoria (there's a signed picture of Her Maj in the ladies loo), and you'll find a carving trolley here that's almost as famous as their regal regulars. The dining room itself is pitched somewhere between Victorian grandeur and Jilly Cooper camp, with giant oil paintings of be-suited board members hanging next to jolly wooden booths, perfect for politicians who might need to plot the downfall of a colleague over an ice-cold Chablis. Red velvet swags hang heavy with portent over indoor windows which seem to lead nowhere, and the female waiting staff wear matronly tea dresses. It wouldn't be a surprise if the food at Wiltons was as old school as the decor, but there's some seriously impressive cooking happening here. An implacably good, twice baked stilton soufflé is wildly cheesy, served in a sterling silver dish, perfectly crisp on the outside and cashmere-soft on the inside, while lobster bisque is funky and dank in the best possible way. There are also bountiful platters of oysters, various plates of smoked fish, dressed crab and caviar to start, but the menu of mains is fairly short. Grilled halibut is fresh and simple, while lobster thermidor – served off the shell – is richer than the monied clientele. Time Out tip Puddings here are famously good and delightfully traditional. The trifle is a sturdy, solid thing of creamy wonder. Nearby
Telegraph
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Mardi Gras and much more: Louisiana's best festivals
The Mardi Gras floats just keep coming, swathed in colour, giant flowers and flashing lights. Their themes may vary – from animals and clowns to mythological creatures – but they are unified by a spirit of boisterous exuberance. New Orleans' most famous festival is gloriously over-the-top, with several weeks of Mardi Gras parades and balls leading up to Shrove Tuesday, known locally as Fat Tuesday. While the UK rustles up a few pancakes, Louisiana embraces vibrancy, with 'krewes' in colourful costumes throwing gifts from their floats and hundred-strong marching bands blasting brass renditions of traditional classics and subverted pop hits. The Mardi Gras balls were a European tradition that came to Louisiana with French settlement in the early 18th century, but the carnival-style parades developed later. Dozens of private membership clubs and organisations formed in the 19th and 20th centuries, creating the krewes that drive the Mardi Gras festivities today. Traditions, such as the 'throws' of gifts to the crowds and Rex, the King of Carnival, emerged over time. But when the Mardi Gras floats return to their garages at the end of the celebrations, the festival scene in New Orleans and Louisiana doesn't wind down one bit. The state is home to more than 400 different festivals across the year, celebrating music, food and culture. Such events are a key part of Louisiana's character. Making music The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is the best-known of Louisiana's music festivals, and it has morphed into something more than a few jazz concerts. In the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May, massive outdoor gigs spanning the genre take place at the Fair Grounds Race Course and the temporary villages showcasing traditional Louisiana life and Native American customs play an important role too. April also plays host to the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, which embraces the seductively swampy side of the blues in the state capital. Later in the month, Lafayette opens itself to the planet at the Festival International de Louisiane. The focus for five days is on world music, although there are distinct Francophone leanings, with plenty of musicians from Canada and West Africa. Time to feast Music may be the food of love, but Louisiana firmly believes food can be the food of love, too. The lines between a food festival and a music festival are often hazy. Mudbug Madness is an excellent example of this. Taking place in late May, the musical side of things concentrates on zydeco music, a blend of Afro-Caribbean, African-American and French influences. The food is also resolutely Cajun, and while there is variety among the food stalls, most revellers come to feast on crawfish. In October, the Oak Street Po-Boy Festival embraces another Louisiana speciality – the po' boy sandwich. Oak Street in Uptown New Orleans sees numerous venues serve up a tantalising variety of fillings inside baguettes that are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Shrimp and crawfish are, of course, the options with most local flavour. Cultural celebrations Louisiana's cultural festivals tend to celebrate a particular strand of local culture. The Italian Festival in the town of Tickfaw honours the waves of Italian-American immigrants that settled there. Taking place at the end of April, the festival combines pageants, parades, Italian food and live music. The ESSENCE Festival of Culture in July, meanwhile, is largely about African-American music and culture. Big-name acts play at the Superdome in New Orleans, while several venues downtown open their doors for inspirational speakers. Holiday spirit In October, Houma in the bayous of southern Louisiana, holds Rougarou Fest, which gets its name from the mythical werewolf-like creature supposedly spotted amid the swamps. The festival leans into local folklore and general spookiness, but the activities and events are family-friendly. At the end of the year, however, the place to be is in Louisiana's oldest European settlement, Natchitoches. Here, the Natchitoches Christmas Festival has become a six-week affair. 300,000 lights and more than 100 set-piece artworks line the historic centre, while the biggest set-piece event is a lighted boat procession along the Cane River.
Voice of America
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Voice of America
Wild ancient version of football is still being played today
This ancient form of football has a rule forbidding players from murdering each other. Every year, thousands of people descend on a small town in the English countryside to watch a two-day game of mass street football that, to the casual observer, could easily be mistaken for a riot. This is Royal Shrovetide — a centuries-old ball game played in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, that, frankly, looks nothing like the world's most popular sport. Or any other game for that matter. "It's like tug of war without the rope," says Natalie Wakefield, 43, who lives locally and has marshaled the event in the past. "It's mad in the best possible way." Hundreds of players Played between two teams of hundreds of players, the aim is to "goal" at either end of a 5-kilometer sector that could take the match through rivers, hedgerows, high streets and just about anything or anywhere except for churchyards, cemeteries and places of worship. The ball is thrown into a crowd that moves like a giant herd, as each team tries to carry it toward their desired goal. Rules are limited but "no murder" was an early stipulation for the game that dates back to at least the 1600s. Good players need to be "hard, aggressive and authoritative," says Mark Harrison, who "goaled" in 1986 and is one of multiple generations of scorers in his family. "You can't practice," the 62-year-old Harrison adds. He stopped competing seven years ago and now serves up burgers to throngs of spectators from a street food truck. "You've just got to get in there and be rough. I am a rugby player ... I'm also an ex-boxer so that helps." Royal approval Harrison had the honor of carrying the then-Prince Charles on his shoulder when in 2003 the now-King of England opened that year's game. "He loved it!" Harrison says. Played over Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday each year, the event is a source of immense pride for the people of Ashbourne in Derbyshire's Peak District. Yet, such a unifying tradition is actually based upon splitting the town into two halves between the "Up'ards" and the "Down'ards," determined by whether players are born on the north or south of the River Henmore. Don't park there On any other days, Ashbourne, around a three-hour drive from London, is quiet and picturesque with a high street lined by antique shops, cafes and traditional pubs. Visitors include hikers, cyclists and campers. For two days that all changes. Large timber boardings are nailed up to protect shop fronts. Doorways are barricaded. "Play Zone" signs are strapped to lampposts, warning motorists not to park there for fear of damage to vehicles, which can be shoved out of the way by the force of the hoards of players trying to move the ball. In contrast, colorful bunting is strewn high above from building to building and revelers congregate, eating and drinking as if it is a street party. Parents with babies in strollers watch on from a safe distance. School holidays in the area have long since been moved to coincide with the festival. "There are people who come and they have a drink and they're just like, 'This is a bit of a crazy thing and it's a spectacle, and now I've seen it, box ticked off,'" says Wakefield, who also used to report on Royal Shrovetide for the local newspaper. "And there are people who are absolutely enthralled by it all, and they get the beauty and complexity of the game and those people follow it year on year." Where's the ball? Play begins with an opening ceremony in a car park, no less, in the center of town. The national anthem and Auld Lang Syne are sung. Competitors are reminded, "You play the game at your own risk." A leather ball, the size of a large pumpkin, filled with cork and ornately painted, is thrown into what is called a "hug" of players. And they're off. As a spectator sport, it can be confusing. There can be little to see for long periods during the eight hours of play each day from 2 p.m. local time. Players wear their own clothes — such as random football or rugby jerseys — rather than matching uniforms. On Tuesday, it took more than 45 minutes to move the ball out of the car park. Onlookers stand on bins, walls and park benches, craning their necks to look down alleyways to try to get a better view. "Can you see the ball?" someone will ask. The answer is often "No." One person thinks it might be in line with a tree over to the right of the car park, but can't be sure. Later that day there had been no sight of the ball for almost two hours until rumors started to circulate that the Down'ards scored what turned out to be the only goal over the two days of play for a 1-0 victory. Deception and cunning With so many players, the hug can be difficult to maneuver but gathers pace quickly, prompting crowds of spectators who'd previously been trying to get a closer look to suddenly run away from the action. The ball can be handled and kicked. Play can be frantic, with players racing after a loose ball wherever it may take them, diving into the river and up and out the other side. While strength is needed in the hug, speed is required from runners if the ball breaks free. Royal Shrovetide, however, can be as much about deception and cunning as speed and strength, it seems. "There's a bit of strategy involved in that somebody's pretending they've still got the ball in the middle of the hug," Wakefield says. "And they're quietly passing it back out to the edge to get it to a runner who has to sneak away in a kind of, I imagine, very nonchalant manner and then leg it down an alleyway." A famous goal in 2019 came as a result of the hug not realizing it didn't have the ball until it was too late. Hidden by two schoolboys standing meters away, the ball was passed to a player who ran, largely unimpeded, for 2 1/2 kilometers before scoring. A ball is goaled when it is hit three times against one of the millstones at either end of the town in Clifton or Sturston. The beautiful game Scorers have likened the achievement to winning Olympic gold. They are carried on shoulders, paraded through the town and celebrated like heroes. "If you can imagine playing for Manchester United in their heyday and they're at Wembley in a cup final. You score the winner. You're there," Harrison says. Scorers also get to keep the balls, which are repainted and become treasured family possessions. It is the game, however, that is treasured most of all. "I just live and breathe it," says Janet Richardson, 75, from Ashbourne, who has been going to Royal Shrovetide since she was a 1-year-old. "I can't sleep because I'm excited. It's so lovely to think that all these people still want to come here and watch this beautiful game that we've got in our town."
Local Sweden
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
INSIDE SWEDEN: Why foreigners in Sweden should get engaged in unions
Hej alla! Some time last year, I put myself forward as a delegate for the Congress of the Swedish Union of Journalists, which is held about every third year, and unexpectedly got selected (I have no idea who voted for me apart from my colleagues at The Local). So last week, I spent three days at a conference hotel in Saltsjöbaden, outside Stockholm, helping in my very small way to set a future course for the union. It could be agonising listening to the same speakers make submission after submission on the same question over and over again. It could be exhausting, returning at 8pm to grind through point after point until half past 10 at night. It was disappointing to watch as the other delegates voted down all three of the proposals I'd been most rooting for. But it was also inspiring and something I would highly recommend any foreigner living in Sweden to do if the opportunity comes up. Congresses like this, where the members of unions, sports federations or campaign organisations agree on future priorities and hold the boards to account, are the foundation of Sweden as a society. The meeting's chair kept a god stämning, or good atmosphere, despite two or three awkward characters who took up far more than their fair share of time. Engaged members who had fought for months to get proposals they really believed in onto the agenda showed extraordinary grace when they were then rejected by the other delegates. And it was wonderful to meet 91 journalists from across the country, all of them passionate about the profession and willing to put in the time to defend it and its practitioners. I thought of all the other congresses held across the country, going back for more than a hundred years, of the countless meetings of unions, sports federations, campaign groups, each of them making hundreds of decisions which together have led to so much of what is great about this country today. If you want to be part of Sweden, get involved. Fika calendar This was the peak week for Swedish fika, including both Fettisdagen (Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras) and fössta tossdan i mass, or "The first Thursday in March", when people in Småland traditionally eat marzipan cakes. So it was only natural to choose it for the launch of the Local's new Fika Calendar. We had a dive into the history behind Semlor, the creamy, marzipan bun that sends Swedes crazy and an explanation of the humour behind the marzipan cake tradition. Readers who share Becky's obsession with Swedish cakes and patisserie in all their forms, and want regular updates, can sign up for the new Fika Calendar here. What else has been in the news? The shockwaves from the bullying treatment of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on February 28th were felt in Sweden, as elsewhere in Europe, throughout the week. After attending a summit in London on March 2nd, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Sweden would be willing to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal. Sweden announced that it was sending Gripen jets to Poland to help patrol their airspace. We put together an explainer on how Sweden's defence industry is ramping up to help Europe's rearmament. It wasn't just US President Donald Trump increasing the sense of insecurity in Sweden. Police in Gotland launched a sabotage probe after the pumps suppling the island's water supply were damaged. There was bad news for inflation, with prices rising for the second month in a row, making further cuts to the interest rate in the near term unlikely. Mortgage providers aren't cutting their rates to fully reflect the lower interest rates set by Sweden's central bank, leading Sweden's Financial Supervisory Authority to advise borrowers to actively seek to renegotiate their mortgages. We explained how to move your mortgage to another bank if they don't cut your rate. We looked at what DIY work you are allowed to carry out yourself in Sweden and what requires a professional. The Confederation of Industry has carried out a new analysis, estimating that increasing the work permit salary threshold to 100 percent of the median salary in Sweden, would cost the economy 30 billion kronor. I spoke to parents of pupils at Internationella Engelska Gymnasiet Södermalm (IEGS), who expressed their anger at the way the IES school chain has handled the closure of the school, taking in pupils last autumn only to leave them stranded, without a school in which to finish their educations. There's sun and blue skies outside my window and I'm looking forward to getting outside into the weather, that down here in Skåne at least, is feeling increasingly spring-like. What do you love most about spring in Sweden? Tell us in our survey here. Thanks for reading, Richard Orange Nordic Editor, The Local
