Biscuits and pancakes

...Or cookies and crepes.

Today is Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day- the last day before Lent starts for both the Orthodox and Catholic and Protestant worlds as Easter is on the same day this year. In the UK, this means making and eating pancakes, which to Americans are crepes. I've been told it has to do with getting rid of the last indulgent foods or general foods you will be giving up for Lent, like eggs, sugar, and chocolate. Pancakes to me sounds like I should get out my bacon and syrup and wait for the short stack to arrive for a breakfast-for-dinner night. (Dad used to make breakfast-for-dinner nights for my brother and me and we would see how many silver dollar pancakes we could eat in one sitting. Good times.)

Similarly, biscuits to me sounds like warm, fluffy, flaky bread that makes you think of good, down-home cookin' (and Bojangles- people from the South know what I'm talking about!). To my fiancee, it sounds like crunchy sweet things, otherwise known as cookies, that you have as a dessert. This is when confusion ensues.

So when I say we will be having creamed turkey and biscuits for dinner, strange looks are commonplace. I find it difficult to describe a biscuit to someone that has nothing like it in their food knowledge. I managed, but then we had to move on to the "creamed" part.

It's not like I had creamed turkey and biscuits a lot growing up (mostly after Thanksgiving to tell the truth), but it is one of those meals that is in the giant collective food repertoire consciousness for most Americans and does have connotations of home cooked meals and Americana. But you never think growing up that this meal that epitomises a lot of American values and history- hard work, home cooking, family, frontiers, simple, honest- is not eaten everywhere and that there are other giant collective food repertoire consciounesses out there.

Now that everyone knows what's what, I can show the pretty pictures of the creamed turkey and biscuits. I had a helper so I have action shots this time.

These are the onions, carrots and peas cooking in some butter.



Then I added some shredded turkey. After this, I added the milk, flour and double cream (I had some in the fridge to use up and it can't hurt, right?) But there are no pictures as we were distracted by the biscuits:



And finally, the finished product all together:



So creamed anything isn't the most appetising looking of all meals, but it sure is tasty.

And educational.