Today is Fat Thursday in Poland! “Tłusty Czwartek” is a traditional Polish feast, which is celebrated on the last Thursday before the beginning of the Lent, marking the last week
of Carnival.
Poles usually meet with their friends and eat a large amount of sweets – most popular are “pączki” – donuts filled with various filling such as briar rose jam and “faworki” – Angel wings with a lot of powdered sugar called also in some regions ‘chrust’. You may see long lines in front of the confectioneries on that day.
Fat Thursday used to mark the beginning of Fat Week – the period of great gluttony during which our ancestors would eat loads of lard (smalec), bacon (bekon) and all the kinds of meat consumed with vodka. Nowadays Fat Thursday is associated especially with donuts, therefore on that day confectioneries are besieged by Poles who wish to purchase ‘pączki’ to celebrate the feast.
The first donuts did not remind those that we know nowadays. Those made of the same dough as bread, filled with pork fat and fried on lard were popular until 16th century. Only afterwards they were made in a sweet way. The most important secret is that the confectioneries do not make them in advance – every respectful cake shop should make ‘pączki’ the night before the Poles reach the shops to buy them. But Polish ‘pączki’ are still different than so called donuts or similar sweets made in USA. Polish dough is made of yeast, flour and eggs. Polish pączki are fried in deep oil (or lard) only for several dozen of seconds (so that the fat would not soak inside.). They taste the best when still warm. Some people used to fill few of them with almond or nut instead of marmalade – while encountering this exquisite filling was supposed to bring good luck.
Although many housewives make ‘pączki’ and ‘faworki’ at home, ou can still see crowds of people standing in the line at confectioneries to buy this Fat Thursday’s specialties. And you really have to do it early in the day, because there may not be much left in the afternoon…
On Fat Thursday, you can legally overfeed yourself! One old Polish proverb says, if you don’t eat at least one donut this day, you will no longer be successful in your life. But the Poles do not feel endangered with this superstition – an average Pole eats on Fat Thursday 2.5 of donut while the whole country eats almost 100 million of them altogether.
So remember – have at least one of them today!
Do następnego razu! (Till next time…)
