In our family calendar when I was much, much younger, today was special. Today was Pancake Tuesday. As children we rarely questioned the odd commemorations of the adult world, and so we never found it strange to single one day out from the 365 and dedicate it to the lowly pancake. We just knew the day would be turned on end, with breakfast served in place of dinner, and this break from routine was reason enough for celebration.

We were vaguely aware of a religious underpinning to this ritual: the name Shrove Tuesday was also mentioned, but we never clearly understood what “Shroves” were either, or why they might have had a Tuesday named for them. Similar confusion swirled around the other capitalized weekdays which followed on in quick succession: Ash Wednesday, Maunday Thursday, Good Friday… Why did none of those have special foods?

The pancakes served for our Pancake Tuesday dinner weren’t the usual variety. They were the more sophisticated cousins of the pancake family: each one as large as a plate, steaming, fragrant, and paper thin. When we grew more worldly, and became aware of ethnic cuisines other Generic WASP, we would belatedly recognize them as crêpes. Standing over the stove, my mum would make an entire batch of them at once, stacking the pancakes up like pages from some edible manuscript, the whole tender volume held in the oven until she was done, covered and kept warm under a sheet of foil.

Once seated, the stacked-high platter would be brought to the table, and it seemed to take forever to diminish it. One by one we’d each peel a pancake off the heap and pave our plate with it. Quartered oranges and lemons in a bowl: you’d pick one out and squeeze it, drizzling the fresh juice over the hot, soft surface. Next a heaped spoonful of sugar scattered in a glittering dazzle, the crystals dissolving instantly in the juices.

The ritual then culminating in The Roll: with fingertips from any point on the perimeter, the pancake swiftly rolled towards its center. The disk recreated as a tube, and held together by the citrus-sugar glue. Knife-and-forked into tender 2” sections, and swallowed in a blur of cutlery and teeth.

My annual observation of Pancake Tuesday ceased when I left home. A couple of my siblings still maintained the tradition, but I always seemed to miss it by a day or so. This year, though, I remembered just in time, and we took a stutter-step towards a proper recognition of the day.

Not the traditional crêpe-style cakes — we’ll ramp up to those next year. But I figure even an “Awesome Twosome” breakfast at the boring local eatery (two eggs, two pieces of bacon, two sausages, and more importantly: two pancakes) was a step in the right direction.