Poles gorge themselves on Fat Thursday

photo - Kpalion

The day may be described as Poland’s answer to Shrove Tuesday (also known as Pancake Day), which precedes Ash Wednesday, in many English speaking countries.

Traditional sweets consumed in Poland on Fat Thursday mainly comprise jam-filled doughnuts, known as pączki, as well as thin strips of crispy pastry dough, known as faworki.

The tradition of eating doughnuts on Fat Thursday began in Poland during the 17th century, with the jam-filled pastries originally being deep fried in lard, which still used in some households for the occasion.

Among bakers and confectioners, Fat Thursday is regarded as one of the busiest days of the year, with many cake shops open from the early hours of the morning after a marathon night of frying doughnuts. Łukasz Blikle of Blikle Confectionery, a firm with an almost 150 year-long tradition, says that today’s demand for pączki is twenty times higher than on an ordinary day.

Statistics for the past few years show that around 100 million doughnuts and many hundreds of kilogrammes of the faworki are eaten on Fat Thursday in Poland, with the average Pole eating two a half doughnuts. According to Bartosz Turek of Home Broker, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza, the money spent on Fat Thursday delicacies today would buy 200 apartments of 50 square metres in Warsaw and as many as around 430 in Bydgoszcz, northern Poland. (mk)