The calendar bristles with food days – in America, March 1 is peanut butter day, May 17 is Walnut Day and June 25 is National Catfish Day. These official days were no doubt proclaimed by the marketing boards of the respective products, or perhaps chosen at random by the creator of this Wikipedia page, and then canonised by a series of food editors with social media calendars to fill. Today, though, really is Pancake Day, a day when pancake eating is sanctioned by at least one major world religion. And whatever your religious beliefs, it seems like a jolly good opportunity to make crêpes.

Take inspiration from history

In the beginning, according to National Geographic, the pancake was a fairly simple affair. 30 000-year-old grinding tools suggest that Stone Age man made flour from ground ferns and cattails, which he (and/or she?) likely mixed with water and fried as a sort of pancake. While we don’t recommend grinding up ferns this year, you could copy the Greeks and Romans and eat your pancakes with honey, or the Elizabethans who ate them with apples, spices, rosewater and sherry (which sounds kind of delicious).

Ideas from around the world

Crêpes Suzette

Today, the pancake has many siblings around the world. There is, of course, the crêpe, which I have just used irresponsibly as a synonym for pancake. The crêpe is generally thinner and doesn’t include any raising agent, which some pancake recipes call for.

If you’d like to be a little more adventurous, you could try the German kartoffelpuffer, made with potato (just don’t top it with cinnamon sugar and lemon juice). Alternatively you could try sweet cheese pancakes called syrniki made in Eastern Europe and Russia, give Iranian potato kookoo a bash, or try your hand at hoppers (a sort of pancake bowl into which you can add sambals or eggs) from Sri Lanka.

A Dutch baby pancake in all his glory

The Germans also make a thicker form called pfannkuchen that in America evolved into something called the Dutch baby (as a result of a mispronunciation of the word Deutsch, or German). This creation is a good option for Instagrammers, thanks to its dashing good looks (especially in skillets) and appealingly cute, hashtaggable name. Which brings me to my next point.

Insane ideas from the internet

Insanity surrounding pancakes is not new – just take the people of Olney, Buckinghamshire, who engage in an annual pancake races, for instance. But much like pizza, the pancake was the blank canvas that the internet had been waiting for.

If you’re still a little stuck in 2013, you could try some red velvet pancakes. (Although I would call these flapjacks not pancakes. Also: this woman also has the world’s most indecisive accent.)

If you’re artistically inclined, you could take it further and make rainbow pancakes.

Nutella may seem like a cliché, but Cronut creator Dominque Ansel is making Nutella pancake cones to celebrate this year’s Pancake Day, so you’re probably safe trying that. (He’s reputedly handing them out for free in NYC.)

One can, of course, also make an Oreo pancake.

On the opposite end of the scale, there are gluten-free, low-carb pancakes made with bananas, egg and coconut flour – great for any Paleo or banting dieters out there.

You could experiment with the pancake cake: a layered stack of pancakes, which is sliced like a pancake. Jackie Cameron’s version, layered with orange chocolate mousse makes our eyes roll back in our heads.

Jackie Cameron’s layered pancakes with orange chocolate mousse

Or you could make pancake lace…

…tackle a pancake cartoon…

…or break the internet with your very own bunny-, kitty-, and doggy-shaped pancakes.