Eat, drink, and be merry

It's Shrove Tuesday. I hope you're hungry.

• In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada it's pancakes.
• On the Portuguese island of Madeira they eat malasadas.
• In Denmark and Norway the day is marked by eating fastelavnsboller.
• In Iceland today, meals are salted meat and peas.
• In Lithuania the people eat pancakes (blynai) and Lithuanian-style doughnuts called spurgos.
• In Sweden the day is celebrated by eating a type of pastry called semla.
• In Finland they eat green pea soup and a pastry called laskiaispulla (sweet bread filled with whipped cream and jam or almond paste).
• In Estonia they also eat pea soup and whipped-cream filled buns called vastlakukkel.
• In Poland and some areas of the United States with large Polish communities, this day is celebrated with pączki eating.

No matter what you eat, traditionally lent begins tomorrow, so Christians for centuries have spent today cleaning out the larder. There's a reason it's called Fat Tuesday.