Feasting on doughnuts eases the pain

WARSAW: After some lean months during the Covid19 pandemic, Fat Thursday finally brought some cheer to Polish confectioners as their sweettoothed customers feasted on doughnuts.

On the last Thursday before Lent, the period when Christians traditionally fast before Easter, Poles stuff their faces with doughnuts in a festival of calorific indulgence.

``The pandemic has obviously had an effect on our sales, a negative effect of course,'' Pawel Sypniewski, owner of the Sucre Patisserie in Warsaw, said. ``Fat Thursday is crucial for my business because the months of January and February are quite dead in our industry.''

Poles were expected to consume almost 100 million doughnuts worth up to 250 million zlotys ($67 million) on Fat Thursday. Dough nut consumption averages out at around 2.5 per head, but for some ambitious Poles that is a poor tally on a day when many aim to eat as many as possible.