Tomorrow February 23rd is going to be Poland’s Fat Thursday. I’ve never heard of this holiday until recently (thanks to my brother who is currently in Poland), and I couldn’t help but imagine it being the Polish version of our Thanksgiving. There is this mental image in my head of plump Polish men inhaling down on Polish kielbasa (sausage/hotdogs) and the women joining them in their fresh pastries they just baked. Well it turns out that I’m not THAT far off.
After doing some research I came to understand that it is a Catholic Christian traditional feast that occurs the last Thursday before Lent. The European countries that take part in this are Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain. They all feast upon foods that they normally would not eat during the Lent period. Specifically, in Poland people tend to go purchase their favorite pastries from their local bakeries. Some of these include pączki and chruściki . Pączki are large, deep fried, jelly (sometimes spiked with vodka) filled doughnuts coated with sugar. Chruściki or faworki, was the name for the colorful ribbons on traditional Polish clothing especially ribbons given to medieval knights by their ladies. In English we would know them by “angel wings”, a crispy pastry made out of dough that has been twisted around (to resemble the ribbons) then deep fried and powdered with sugar. I can't help but think of the American version of a Fat Thursday- can someone say Dunkin' Donuts? That would be pretty awesome.
Polish "Chruściki