Lent

[11B4V]

In my region a traditional carnival dessert are "filloas", which are sorta like French crepes, so not quite pancakes and traditionally sweet, but you get the idea. 

Just looked up the recipe and it's basically the same.  The British one is normally just flour, eggs, milk and a pinch of salt so you can have savoury and sweet.  Is that Galician or all over Spain?

Also what do you do with the blood?  I'm imagining like large thin slices of black pudding

It's basically Galician, although you can find them a bit around the NW of Spain.

And a "Filloa de sangue" looks like this:



It's basically the same recipe than the normal one, but with added pig blood in the mixture.

That looks like a big pile of shit.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Euro food is odd.

[CountDeMoney]

Thank you, now I have to take a dump.

[Sheilbh]

And a "Filloa de sangue" looks like this:
...
It's basically the same recipe than the normal one, but with added pig blood in the mixture.

Interesting.  How do you eat them, are they savoury or sweet?  Looked up blood pancake and apparently it's something the Finns eat with jam.

[Martinus]

A lot of stuff Sheilbh mentions is also reflected in Polish culture/religiosity, so I suspect this is more of an European Catholic thing.

We have the Fat Thursday (the Thursday preceding the Ash Wednesday), and the Shrove Tuesday (literally "Leftovers") when people eat a lot of sweets, especially "paczki" (jelly-filled dougnuts) and "faworki" (crisp delicate pastry made of dough twisted into ribbons, deep-fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar).

Two styles of paczki (btw, "paczki" is plural of "paczek"):

Glazened:



Non-glazened:



Faworki:



On Ash Wednesday Catholics are supposed not to eat meat and generally refrain from luxurious foods - this, along with Good Friday, is one of the "strict fast" days in the Catholic calendar (although traditionally, the Christmas Eve is also a day of fasting in Poland, with the Christmas Eve dinner featuring only fish). Fish btw is not considered "meat", same with eggs.

During the entire Lent, Catholics are supposed to refrain from parties and dancing, and on Fridays they are also supposed to fast but this is not as strictly enforced.

I remember as a kid all these things used to be a big deal, but these days both the fasting and dancing thing is not really observed by younger people, including Catholics.

There is also a concept of giving up some vices (sex, masturbation, alcohol, tobacco, etc.) for lent, but again this is optional.

During the Lent period, in Catholic churches there is a special Friday evening ritual (not a holy mass btw) called the Stations of the Cross ("Droga Krzyżowa"), which involves people meditating on Christ's path to Calvary - this is the same as done by the Pope in the Collisseum on the Good Friday. I remember being forced to go to these as a kid, by the pressure from the priest. 

[11B4V]

That stuff looks normal.

[Sheilbh]

A lot of stuff Sheilbh mentions is also reflected in Polish culture/religiosity, so I suspect this is more of an European Catholic thing.

I think a lot of the Fat Tuesday stuff is a bit deeper, but it does seem common across Europe. 

It probably started as something Catholic or Orthodox but it's since survived the Reformation.  As I say pancake day and lent here aren't terribly religious.  I've a friend in the Netherlands who said they have a big party and feasting before Ash Wednesday even though the Netherlands is officially Calvinist and not really that religious.

We have hot cross buns in the run-up to Easter too:

Apparently they tried to ban them during the Reformation but they were too popular so Elizabeth allowed bakeries to sell them but only on Christmas and Easter.  Though you can get them all year round now they're still associated with Easter and they're normally cheap this time of year

We have the Stations of the Cross too and, yeah, for the Catholics Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are supposed to be fast days.  You don't eat anything all day unless you're old, very young, pregnant or ill.

Though as I say I'm surprised it's so religious and rarely observed in the US.

[The Larch]

I admit it's not a flattering pic, better looking ones are like brown-reddish versions of the normal ones.



They're a bit like blood puddings in that they also normally contain pine nuts and raisins.

[Martinus]

Here "fast" means you just don't eat meat and sweets (and possibly butter). I guess Poles like food too much to put up with "not eating anything" - only the fanatics do that.

[Grey Fox]

Though as I say I'm surprised it's so religious and rarely observed in the US.

I always figured it was because the Baptist don't seem to observe any of those things.

[Martinus]

Yeah, to me the customs surrounding the end of the Carnivale and the Lent itself are a quintessential Catholic thing. There is very little actual spirituality in that, but a lot of obscure ritual and "fun" stuff (like sinful excess followed by for-show penance). I could see how Puritans, Baptists and the like would consider it to be some of the worst examples of Catholic excesses.

To me, stuff like this actually makes it worth to be a Catholic - a bunch of middle class people reading Bible and refraining from alcohol and sodomy is where the snooze fest begins.

[FunkMonk]

In my region a traditional carnival dessert are "filloas", which are sorta like French crepes, so not quite pancakes and traditionally sweet, but you get the idea. 

Just looked up the recipe and it's basically the same.  The British one is normally just flour, eggs, milk and a pinch of salt so you can have savoury and sweet.  Is that Galician or all over Spain?

Also what do you do with the blood?  I'm imagining like large thin slices of black pudding

It's basically Galician, although you can find them a bit around the NW of Spain.

And a "Filloa de sangue" looks like this:

big pile of shit

It's basically the same recipe than the normal one, but with added pig blood in the mixture.

That looks like a big pile of shit.

[Eddie Teach]

To me, stuff like this actually makes it worth to be a Catholic

The only thing that would make it worthwhile to be any type of Christian would be getting into Heaven/avoiding Hell.

[fhdz]

The only thing that would make it worthwhile to be any type of Christian would be getting into Heaven/avoiding Hell.

True story. The trappings are neat, but they're just trappings.

[Josephus]

Yeah, to me the customs surrounding the end of the Carnivale and the Lent itself are a quintessential Catholic thing. There is very little actual spirituality in that, but a lot of obscure ritual and "fun" stuff (like sinful excess followed by for-show penance). I could see how Puritans, Baptists and the like would consider it to be some of the worst examples of Catholic excesses.

To me, stuff like this actually makes it worth to be a Catholic - a bunch of middle class people reading Bible and refraining from alcohol and sodomy is where the snooze fest begins.

FYI....Catholics frown on that whole sodomy thing.