Ukrainian Mardi Gras this year 12-18th of February. Its dish is easy pancakes made of water, eggs and flour, with dough as runny, as milk. It may seem frying takes lots of cooking oil. Not at all. The secret is …
in preparation before cooking. Traditionally it is cooked on cast-iron frying pan – no teflon. Firstly, it takes to heat iron frying pan very well, secondly – either routinely greasing frying pan surface with a piece of lard during cooking (in Russina), or to mix spoon-ful of cooking oil once (in Ukraine – usually of sun-flower seeds) with 1 liter of dough. Voi-la!
So there are could be other reasons, why this week before Lent in Eastern Slavic folk tradition is called Butter Week (Masliana or Масниця in Ukrainian, and Мaсленица in Russian).
Traditionally during this week of folk celebrations there are lots of hand-made items on sale on fairs, like wooden spoon depictured below.
It is good time indulging in cooking and meeting friends, and thinking that somewhere else lots of people enjoiying their Winter-meets-Spring-festivities, like Mardi Gras.
