Batter my Heart

There's nothing more romantic than pancake day

Photo by M Draa on Unsplash

When you think of romantic days of the year, Valentine’s Day probably pops up front of mind. Christmas, perhaps, if gifting is your love language. Halloween for those kooky freaks in the sheets. (We need words, you lot.) Perhaps you have your own special date: an anniversary, a first meet. Or could it be a leap year? A chance to perform a huge romantic gesture in the knowledge if it doesn’t land, the date can’t haunt you again for at least another 4 years.

It’s a no brainer for me. Pancake day. With all its flour-faced, buttery-plated goodness; its standing in the kitchen with bare feet and the extraction fan on full-whack; its rule-breaking of meal-specific ideas, and ignorance of suggested glucose intake. It really is the tits.

Anything made from batter is the pinnacle of British cuisine. Creamy, beige and whisked in nostalgia, you cannot eat anything that comes from this liquid — a crisp Yorkshire pudding, a Marmite-spreaded crumpet, a deep-fried cod fillet, nor a cinnamon-sprinkled churro — without feeling full to the brim on love. Batter is the stuff of sunny days out, weekends at home, seaside towns, cosy pubs, being surrounded by the ones you love most.

The more I ponder it, I realise pancakes have featured from a young age. My favourite film, Matilda, formed the notion I wanted nothing more than the skills and independence to make pancakes for myself aged four, while my parents went out to work. Instead, I had some help: my nonna and her best-friend, ‘Jessie Pancakes’, a robust, kind woman synonymous with the scotch drop. I spent my youngest days eating short but stout (much like aunt Jessie) drop scones while eavesdropping on my grandmother’s giggles with her oldest friend. Each flip, unveiling my nonna as a new woman. I observed the magic of over fifty years of female friendship. Two women losing their husbands, finding strength together, yet finding one another’s baking weaknesses. My nonna, laughing, eyes filling with tears of joy as she picked eggshell shrapnel out the bowl with her long red-nails.

At primary school, we had ‘pancake races’. I assure you, it was quite the takeover — the highlight of the year, some might say. A serious operation stretching from one playground to another. Parents, teachers, all coming out to help. Lessons cancelled for the morning as tiny toddlers in kilts ran between plastic cones, miniature frying pans in hand. Flip seven times before you can move to the next station. The counting out loud! The rush of landing the seventh flip without dropping it! The sprint finish! Claiming the trophy prize of a full-size Crème Egg instead of three Mini Eggs if you were the winner. Maybe pancakes brought out my competitive over-achieving streak (winning these races have been the pinnacle of my athletics career to date). Yet despite my type-A determination, the day was a chance to learn things didn’t always have to be so serious. Pancakes equated to cancelled lessons, paused curriculums, teachers having just as much fun as us for the morning. Plus, when Creme Eggs were the prize? Victory really was sweet.

The friends I elbowed out of the way to come first are still, by some miracle, friends of mine today after nearly twenty-eight years. Pancakes are a drumbeat to our long-standing love. Served for breakfast after every sleepover, my friend’s mum, Sue, reigned queen of the crêpe. When she lost her husband, our primary school sleepovers continued but were tinged with sadness. Despite Sue’s crippling grief, she still served us pancakes every time. It gave her a reason to get up; it brought us unparalleled joy. This batter was her love language. No matter how awful she felt, she’d roll up her sleeves and make space at her table for us to roll up our crêpes. Every pancake day we reminisce about the moments we spent together, still growing, evolving, our minds not yet fully formed; the surrounding grief causing us to thicken into adults like hotcakes. We felt like grown-ups at nine years old, bleary-eyed but bushy-tailed from staying up late to watch Bridget Jones with its 15-rating and naughty swear words. We could see this both this woman’s sadness; how much she adored us as she ladled her love into the pan. So when Sue sadly left us some years later, she also left us the brilliant legacy of her pancakes. Pancake day for us will always be her day.

At university, we annually crammed five of us into the world’s smallest kitchen in Glasgow. Our student abode was huge but with a kitchen akin to a postage stamp. Continually on some health-hype, pre-ball diet, or brimming with classic female insecurity (read: stupidity), we were all carb-phobic for a few years. Pancake night was a hall-pass from clean-eating. And boy did we go to town. These nights with smoke alarms wailing and (disgustingly) dirty tea-towels wafting are etched into our emotional hard-drives. When the batter ran out, we took to licking the toppings off the plate like crazed phantom-crêpers. We found the time to all sit around the depressing IKEA table in the draughty living-room together for the first time in months. Is Nutella a carb? I really like him. I’ve been feeling quite anxious. Are they dating? Gosh. How awful. Are you guys going to the gym tomorrow? I’m stressed about my next assignment. How many calories are in a spoonful of nut butter? How are you really feeling though, girl? Although our budgets had us in refusal to turn the heating on, somehow things felt a little warmer on those nights — and not just on account of the cooking. Have we got healthier relationships with food and diet? I’d like to think so. Yet looking back, it’s clear to me there was one thing we only ever really gained: healthy relationships with one another. The true highs against our backdrop of blurry-nights and drunken stupor. When I think back to university, I don’t miss being wild and free — I miss nights like this. I think they call these life’s crispy bits.

I enjoy pancake day’s ever-moving date. Isn’t it strangely beautiful that for all our regimented ways, analysis of sleep schedules, and overly optimised spreadsheets, we allow the timing of certain recipes to be set by a celestial body moving round the earth? Lunar-fixated, moving with the tides, it’s a celebration founded in earth doing the talking and us adapting accordingly. The planets demand you give up dieting tonight! Have some fun! Go to bed with your hair olfactory-balayaged by butter. Sleep steeped in lemon and sugar.

You can go out for brunch on pancake day if you like. Perhaps your corporate canteen will run a subsidised special instead of paying you more money this quarter. These will be fine, tasty even. Yet, the real beauty of pancake day lies in the making. The joy is in the mess. If you’re making pancakes with someone, you know their daily routine, their favourite emojis, how they like their coffee. You know where their frying pans are kept and you’re happy to wear the old jeans you don’t mind getting covered in flour in front of them — You’ve let them in. You’re putting the first drop in the pan, getting to know one another’s surfaces as things heat up. Lovers, best friends, housemates. Shared memories caked in batter. You are close enough to stand, butter-melting, and let your truth bubble to the surface together.

Pancakes for dinner feels like bottling the most perfect Sunday you’ve ever had, then uncorking it with people who mean something to you. So, let go of the judgement. Add bacon. Add syrup. Try that strange flavour combination. Don’t hold back. Don’t worry about the clean-up ahead, enjoy this moment. Go on, you know you want to have just one more. Nothing on this earth is perfect. Life is only as good as your most recent flip. So what if this specific one breaks? At least you had a go. Relish in the messiness of it all — it’s all part of life’s deliciousness.