Foreign Fridays Fact: England

As part of Foreign Fridays, we explore a different country each week through its most unusual, amusing and odd facts. If you want your country to appear, then simply get in contact with us either in the comments below or through Facebook or Twitter.

This week it is the turn of the England:

The world record number of people to simultaneously flip pancakes together is 890, set in Sheffield a week before Pancake Day in 2012.

Tuesday next week is Shrove Tuesday. Traditionally a deeply religious day, it is the day before the start of lent. However, as with most religious festivals these days in Britain, it is now all about food. And in England, one food in particular: pancakes.

Yes Shrove Tuesday is more commonly known as Pancake Day now. It is an excuse to forget your diet and go batter crazy for one day. How many can you eat? One pancake? Two? Five? Ten? A general rule of thumb should be to try and hit at least five, otherwise what's the point eh?

In pancake making there is one sure fire way to tell the pros from the newbies- pancake flipping. And by chance, the world record was set just last week at Sheffield University in the north of England. More than 1,300 people turned up with frying pans in hand to beat the record. To make the final count you had to continuously toss your pancake for 30 seconds without dropping it. The final figure was a staggering 890 people who managed to toss pancakes simultaneously. This smashed the previous record of 405 set in Holland.

So come Tuesday, make sure you give pancake flipping a try, though don't drop too many pancakes as they're too delicious to waste.

You can see all the previous Foreign Friday blog posts here and the main Foreign Fridays page here.

Share with friends