04 March, 2014

Happy Pączki Day 2014



It being Fat Tuesday, Poles and those of Polish ancestry are celebrating by eating pączki, Polish filled doughnuts without holes. Lane's Bakery here in Madison has them today.

A few days I ago I listened to podcast from Polskie Radio about Pączki Day which was interesting. They have a show on this every year, in fact. Last year the hostesses decried the trend of baked pączki. This year they noted that rose hip marmalade is the traditional filling ("it has to be rose hip marmalade") and one of the women remarked that a paczek with custard filling is "truly not a paczek."

I also learned that pączki are nicknamed "angels' wings" and that folklore has it that, if you don't eat a paczek, you'll have bad luck the rest of the year. Oh, and Fat Thursday seems to be the big day for Poles to eat pączki instead of Fat Tuesday.

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