It’s all about eating paczki on Fat Tuesday
Chances are you know a little something about beignets, the powdered sugar-coated fried doughnuts eaten at French Mardi Gras celebrations.
In case you didn’t notice, Pittsburgh has a pretty sweet Fat Tuesday tradition, too, thanks to our sizable Polish diaspora. They are called paczki (pronounced PUNCH-kee), and, boy, are they delicious.
Poland’s version of the jelly doughnut is sold by the dozens in the days leading up to Lent, the 40-day period when Christians fast, pray and do penance in preparation for Easter. They’re especially popular on Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, when tradition calls for stuffing yourself silly with the fat and sugar that the faithful know they’ll soon have to say goodbye to.
Back in the Middle Ages, the doughnuts were filled with pork fat and fried in lard. They got sweeter, and lighter, once King Augustus III brought French chefs to the Royal Court
during his reign from 1734 to 1763. Made with a very rich, sweet yeast dough chock-full of sugar, milk, eggs and butter, they’re a bit more fattening than a traditional doughnut. Depending on the size and filling, a single paczek can carry as many as 700 calories and 20 to 30 grams of fat, making them even more indulgent than a Big Mac.
But, hey, it’s not like you’re going to eat them every day, right?
In Poland, “paczki day” is observedon TłustyCzwartek (Fat Thursday), or the last Thursday before Ash Wednesday. Here in Pittsburgh, sales usually start sometime in early January and then immediately stop once Lent begins. This year, the last day to enjoy them fresh out of the oven is Tuesday.
Glazed or covered with granulated or powdered sugar, paczki are traditionally filled with raspberry, lemon, cream and lekvar, or prune puree. But local bakers have been known to put their own spin on the pastry. At Oakmont Bakery on Allegheny Avenue in Oakmont (412-826-1606), where as many as 4,500 paczki at $2 a piece fly off the shelves each day in the week leading up to Fat Tuesday, Pittsburghers can choose between more than a dozen flavors, including cookies ’n cream and maple bacon along with coconut, peach,cherry and apple.
At Bethel Bakery on Brightwood Road in Bethel Park (412-835-6658), standard flavors ($1.50) include lemon, Bavarian cream, raspberry and buttercream, but there’s also a revolving “flavor of the week” ($1.60). This week it’s chopped cherry.
And at Party Cake Shop on Brookline Boulevard in Brookline (412-531-5322), where the doughnuts cost $1.25 a piece or $12.99 a dozen, pastry lovers can choose between three types of buttercream (plain, chocolate and peanut butter), custard, lemon, raspberry, apricot, prune or plain.
You also can find paczki at larger grocery stores such as Giant Eagle and Kuhn’s Market and Stop ‘n Save.