Amid the thrill of the Winter Olympics, the breaking news of a kamikaze pilot taking aim at an IRS building, the death of Michigan-born musician Doug Fieger (My Sharona), and endless below-the-Beltway wrangling and pot shots, this week brought yet another yearly event. No, I don’t mean the anniversary of the passage of porky stimulus bills that provoke little more than hot tempers, Black History Month, or Presidents’ Day.
I’m talking about Fat Tuesday, the engorgement before the sack-cloth, ashes, and fasting of Lent.
Mainly a Catholic ritual made wildly popular by residents of New Orleans, Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday, for those of you without a clue), the day before Ash Wednesday, is reserved for those who wish to party hearty before six weeks of enforced abstinence. That’s the deal before you can celebrate Easter. It makes perfect sense to stuff yourself before the leaner, meaner times descend. It’s instinct. Bears do it.
Down in Louisiana, revelers observe the day with massive amounts of alcohol (I’m thinking daiquiris in every color of the rainbow), the throwing of metallic green and purple beads, and the flashing of breasts, but here in Southeastern Michigan, we take a more basic approach to imbibing before the fast.
We eat big, fat, butter-laden, sugar-glazed jelly donuts.
Paczkis (pronounced “poonch-kies”) are not your normal, everyday jelly donut. Invented by the Polish people, paczkis are jelly donuts on steroids. They are chock full of more of everything – more fat, more sugar, more eggs, more jelly. They are as round and as solid as a tennis balls. Urban legend has the average paczki coming in around 4,000 calories; however, it’s probably closer to 500.
I don’t eat donuts. I reserve my sweet tooth to those items more refined, like Grand Marnier souffles. I don’t get the appeal of a plain Krispy Kreme. If an occasional box from Dunkin Donuts crosses my path, I will open it and take a sniff. However, on Fat Tuesday – Paczki Day in these parts – I will break with tradition and my diet and eat one of these yearly delicacies. A fresh paczki is soft, warm, and buttery. There is nothing like it.
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Article comments
1 - Stephanie
I'm glad to see you aren't closing yourself off to donuts completely! Think of it this way: It's a good way to show your kids how to expand their palates. Next time you serve them spinach, say, "See? Mommy eats paczkis and I don't even like donuts. Maybe you'll like the spinach."