Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday

Fat Tuesday Or Shrove Tuesday

Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday with the preparation for the Easter season. When the population was an agricultural society, many cooks cleaned out their pantries of cooking fat preparing for the season of fasting and usually abstaining of a certain food item as an act of penance. With this practice, the fat was used to deep fry foods that were eaten the day before Ash Wednesday which gave the day the name "Fat Tuesday".

My husband had a wonderful great-aunt, Martha Brown. She was an outstanding cook. Actually Aunt Martha was the bookkeeper for her husband's plumbing business. After the death of her husband, her sons took over the business. She continued as the secretary and bookkeeper. Each day the two sons came for breakfast and at that time the three sat down to discuss the calls for the day. This is a recipe of Aunt Martha and was a tradition at her home for "Fat Tuesday". The word Fastnacht is German and is the term meaning the celebration of Carnival which is in Italy or Shrove Tuesday which is a term in the Christian church.

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Fastnachts

Ingredients:

2 pkgs. yeast

2 cups scalded milk

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

2 eggs, well beaten

1/4 cup shortening, melted and cooled

7 - 7 1/2 cups flour

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Directions:

Scald milk and cool to lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in milk, add a pinch of sugar. Sift flour. Start with 3 cups flour, add liquid ingredients, salt, and melted and cooled shortening. Beat with mixer on medium speed for 5 minutes. By hand add remaining flour till dough is elastic.

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Grease bowl, cover dough and let rise till double. Punch down. Roll dough on board. Cut in rectangles and let rise. Deep fry. When cool shake in a bag with granulated or powdered sugar.