WE’RE TALKING CRÊPE..

The tradition of eating pancakes dates back to the ancient Greeks, while Britons have been munching them for about 1,000 years. There are recipes for them in cookbooks as far back as 1439.

In total, Britons use a whopping 52million eggs on Pancake Day.

That’s 22m more than on any other day.

The largest pancake ever made measured 15 metres and weighed in at three tonnes – you’ll need a lot of sugar and lemon or maple syrup for that one.

The fastest flipper officially is Australian celebrity chef Brad

Jolly, right. He holds the record for the most tosses of a pancake in one minute, notching up a so-far unbeatable 140 flips in 60 seconds.

The classic lemon and sugar is our favourite topping, followed by maple syrup, according to a poll by YouGov.

In France, people like to make a wish before flipping their pancakes. They do this while holding a coin in the other hand.

The word Shrove comes from the old English word “shrive”, meaning to confess your sins. Christians would be called to confession by the ring of a bell which came to be known as the pancake bell, and it is still rung in some churches today.

On average we consume two pancakes per person on Pancake Day, which means that we get through 117m in one day! This requires enough milk to fill more than 93 Olympic swimming

pools and almost 13m kilos of plain flour.

But the record for scoffing them is held by Matt Stonie, left, who ate a world record

113 pancakes in eight minutes during the 2016 World Pancake Eating Championship in Chico, California. Before baking soda was invented, cooks often used fresh snow as it contained ammonia, which helped the pancakes come out fluffy and soft. The first pancake recipe appeared in an English cookbook in the 15th Century. It is said to have originated in Olney, Bucks, when a housewife was so busy making pancakes that she forgot the time. When she heard the church bells ringing for mass she ran out of her house, still carrying her pan and pancake. Olney still has a pancake race every year. The highest pancake toss ever reached 31ft 1in high by Dominic Cuzzacrea in New York on November

13, 2010.

EGGSELLENT! Millions of us will be going flippin’ mad this week as we celebrate Pancake Day. More than half the country will go batter barmy and tuck in to the tasty treat on Shrove Tuesday. Traditionally it marked the last day before the period of fasting began the following day, Ash Wednesday, and was a way of using up leftover fatty foods. Here, ISOBEL DICKINSON puts together some pan-tastic facts about the food extravaganza.