"Week Two's" prompt read as follows: "Using the internet, find the most unusual, surprising cultural tradition from your own ethnic heritage that you can-- this can be a wedding, funeral, holiday, meal, etc. In your blog, describe the tradition in your OWN words, and your thoughts about what it would be like to experience it firsthand. You're encouraged to describe that imagined experience with detail."
My response then, for MY "class blog."
Responding to Prompt 1:
I’m a mix of many different European “flavors,” but Irish and German probably make up the largest percentages of my respective ethnic pie chart, so I checked out examples of Irish festivities.
On one site, I read about the Irish version of “Fat Tuesday,” which they call, “Shrove Tuesday.” Apparently, when the Irish were experiencing one of their famous famines, they still wanted to observe the gluttony which is commonly practiced with gusto on the day before the Lenten season. However, at the time, with no fats or meats to spare… They only had eggs, milk, and butter with which to feast. So?
They decided to make pancakes.
Every “Fat Tuesday,” the Irish– those particularly in the Dingle region– enthusiastically observe “Pancake Tuesday,” by making and EATING as many pancakes as possible. RANDOM! In earlier days, a girl’s eligibility to be married was apparently equated with her pancake making skills. Bad pancakes… equaled no hubby. Haha!
My imagined Shrove Tuesday experience…
I stared down at the frying pan, already in a sweat. Mama O’Neill– who wasn’t my mother, of course, but who insisted on being called so by everyone under 50– hovered at my elbow. “Remember, dear!” she chuckled in her lilting brogue. “Ye’d best mix it well, ‘lest the men-folk think ye be lackin’ in the kitchen… Or in the bedroom for that matter!” She threw back her head and cackled. “The two go t’gether, so they say!”
I thought of Willy Brian, who I’d promised my first stack to– thought of his ruddy cheeks, and wide, bright smile. I’d made the batch of butter myself, collected from our cow this morning– but had spilled the salt during the churning. I’d tasted it earlier, and had been utterly dismayed by its brackish taste. In vain I’d tried to steal some of mother’s from the larder, but she’d whisked me out the door to attend the Shrove Tuesday festival before I’d had a chance. And here was Mother O’Neill, watching, hawk-eyed, as I mixed up the batter. I felt the sweat roll down my neck.
“Don’t be nervous, lass!” she cackled again. “It’s only your love life at stake!” Her wized wrinkles danced on her face, wiggling in inexplicable patterns as she laughed. “Here.” She shoo’ed me out of the way. “Let me try a bit.”
She lifted a spoon of batter to her mouth, and tried it. Then, with a great cough, she spewed the mixture all over the circle of batter in the frying pan, already cooking. I cringed. She turned to me, her sparkling blue eyes now full of jesting concern.
“Oh darlin’. Ye’d best serve Willy a Guinness or two before you feed him that!”
