Paczki Day!

All around the world today, people - mostly Catholics but also some non-Catholics who want to join in the fun - are engaging in all manner of debauchery. This includes the Poles, who on this day instead of drinking themselves into oblivion and showing their titties to the world, eat paczkis!

For those not in the know (and despite being of Polish Catholic descent, that included me until recently), paczkis (pronounced "potchkeys") are a lot like jelly donuts, only better. According to the Wikipedia article, Poles made paczkis to use up all the sugar, lard, and fruit in the house before Lent. Traditionally, they ate these wonderful creations on Fat Thursday (six days before Ash Wednesday), but because of the French influence (!) of Mardi Gras, they're now generally eaten on Fat Tuesday. After all, when Jesus went into the desert for 40 days, he didn't have any delicious paczkis to eat, and as such, neither should you.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had never heard of them until a few years ago, shortly after my husband and I moved to Milwaukee from San Francisco. He came home from work on Fat Tuesday telling me about these jelly donuts someone had brought in, and how happy he was to have eaten a prune-filled one. As a (non-practicing) Ashkenazi Jew, he was quite familiar with the (insanely delicious) prune-filled hamantaschen his grandma made. Turns out prune-filled paczkis are also super delicious. Ok, so fast forward three years to today. Somehow I managed to never eat a paczki until this morning (I guess the people in my office weren't as generous as his).

My son and I stopped at a local bakery (one I've been meaning to go into for two years, but what do I ever have to go into a bakery for?) which was all decked out in red fabric draped on the windows, doors, and even the bare trees outside. (I have no idea of the significance of this, but it's not usually there so I took it to indicate paczki participation.) We went inside, stood in line and bought the two paczkis you see in the picture there: one prune (broken open), one custard.

I haven't had a jelly donut in years because I don't particularly care for their generally sickeningly sweet fillings, so maybe I'm off in my comparison between them and paczkis, so correct me if I'm wrong - paczkis are larger, with a lighter dough and much more filling inside. How have I managed to live in Milwaukee for 3 ½ years and not had one of these? Clearly this was a gross oversight.

Anyway, that's my son midchew, eating his first paczki (note the prune filling is everywhere). He was absolutely thrilled, and his enthusiasm was really adorable, but as I found out shortly after this picture was taken, prunes are sticky, y'all. Not easy to clean off him or the highchair. Guess I'm glad Paczki Day only comes once a year.

Happy Paczki Day, everybody!