Kmflett's Blog

Are you doing Collop Monday? On reinventing traditions

We may be taking back control but don’t expect to hear about the traditional Collop Monday from GB News or Farage.

In the traditional calendar Shrovetide consists of there days: Shrove Sunday, Collop Monday and Shrove Tuesday.

Following this comes 40 days of Lent a period of frugality (poor people only)

Collop Monday was the last opportunity to use up any meat that would not last until the end of Lent.

In the days before refrigeration meat in February would consist of salted or smoked bacon or pork in the main. It would be cooked and eaten and the fat produced used to make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

The point being, and this is perhaps where Collop Monday might find support in 2025, that today is meant to be the last day of meat eating until Easter.

As Eric Hobsbawm noted all traditions are invented, Collop Monday was invented by the Christian Church in Medieval times, and they can of course be reinvented to suit