Miscellaneous

UK: pancake race canceled after 600 years

By Walter Olson, Ted Frank, and David Nieporent

The town of Ripon in North Yorkshire has finally canceled its Shrove Tuesday pancake race, in which school children run down a street flipping pancakes. Among the reasons cited are bureaucracy and other discouragements to volunteering, child protection rules, road closure difficulties and, most prominently, a "mountain" of needed health and safety assessments demanded by insurers: ?The main issue is the cobbled street, that people could slip on," says an organizer. The event dates back 600 years and is tied to a local tradition in which native women tricked Saxon invaders with liquor-soaked pancakes. [Times Online, Guardian, Daily Mail] This BBC account explains the Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) tradition of consuming pancakes, which use up some of the rich ingredients forbidden during the following season of Lent. See Feb. 23, 2004 (near-cancellation of similar event).

Full post as published by Overlawyered on February 06, 2008 (boomark / email).