Celebrate Fat Tuesday With Doughnuts, Pancakes & Meat

Blueberry Doughnut

Happy Fat Tuesday! Or Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras…in any case today is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, a forty-day-long liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter. In many countries it’s tradition to eat pancakes or some sort of leavened fatty food (doughnuts etc) on Fat Tuesday because traditionally, all meat and dairy products were forbidden during Lent. Pancakes or doughnuts were a good way of using up the last of those meat, eggs and dairy pantry items. Whether you are preparing to observe Lent or not, here are some picks for where to get your Fat Tuesday on.

Apple Fritter from Dean and Deluca

For doughnuts the Doughnut Plant (now available to you Flatiron Lunch’ers) is a great bet. Can’t get down to their store? You can generally find a good selection at Joe the Art of Coffee and Dean & Deluca. Speaking of Dean & Deluca, this year, the cracklike apple fritter they carry from D’Aiuto bakery is a serious candidate for indulgence. Want to up the indulgence factor? How about a Doughnut Plant Doughnut Concrete from Shake Shack?

As for pancakes, the Eggstravaganza cart cooks up flapjacks from scratch fresh each morning at breakfast time. Alas Madeleine the Crêpe Lady is currently on hiatus, but after reading Chris’ post on Crêpe Monster, I’m intrigued by their ice cream crepes, seems very much in the spirit of Fat Tuesday.

Box o' Shack Burgers
If you’re planning on giving up meat for Lent (or just anticipating a meatless Ash Wednesday, a juicy Shack Burger or a perfectly fried Schnitzel from Schnitzel & Things would make for a worthy meat send off.

And if you’re thinking to yourself WWZD? Well, Mr. Brooks would likely be in New Orleans. Barring that, it’s a safe bet that you could find our fearless leader at the Grand Central Oyster Bar scarfing a fried shrimp po’ boy or the fried oyster po’ boy that Clay called “worth a special trip to GCT just to get it.”

Got some more Fat Tuesday suggestions? Leave ’em in the comments!

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