Fat Tuesday - WKTV Journal

Paczkis are loaded with yummy goodness weighing in between 350 and 700 calories each.

By: Mike DeWitt

If your coworkers, friends and family look a little fuller around the waist this morning, it’s not your eyes playing tricks on you. Today is Fat Tuesday, or Paczki Day, a time for people to indulge in sweets and fatty goodness before Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent.

A paczki (pronounced poonch-key) is a delectable polish treat with rich dough, sweet fillings, rolled in powdered sugar and covered in glaze.

However, don’t make the mistake of comparing a paczki to a jelly doughnut.

A jelly doughnut is a cheap knockoff to a paczki. Real Polish paczki are made with extremely rich dough because religious law forbade the consumption of lard, sugar and eggs during the Lenten fasting season. Everything rich in the pantry was used to create the glorious treat that is then filled with a fruit or cream filing. While the added sweet in the center makes your taste buds jump for joy, it’s all about the dough. It’s dense, not light and fluffy, so it doesn’t collapse when you bite in.

While paczki are a well-known treat on Fat Tuesday, it’s a Polish concoction and not the only fat-filled item on the menu around the world. In Ukraine, it’s a crepe-like pancake called nalysnyky, and doughnuts called spurgos and krofne are made in Lithuania and Serbia, respectively. The treats may be different, but the idea is the same, dump all your butter and eggs into a pastry and eat up! It’ll be forty days until you have the chance again.

Marge's Donut Den offers 12 varieties of Paczkis with powdered or glazed topping. — Marge’s Donut Den offers 12 varieties of Paczkis with powdered or glazed topping.

Looking for a paczki? Look no further than Marge’s Donut Den on 28th Street. Stop on in and indulge in the little calorie bomb’s carbo-loaded goodness!

Originated in Poland, women would make these to use up the sweet ingredients before Lent.

Next Tuesday is FAT Tuesday or Paczki Day (pronounced Pawnch-kee) named so because it’s the last day to indulge in sweets before the season of Lent. These traditional Polish doughnuts (which date back to the Middle Ages!) have their own special dough recipe to be deep fried, injected with sweet fillings and then rolled in powdered sugar or basted with a glaze. It seems appropriate then for Marge’s Donut Den to take these seductive calorie bombs seriously and offer them to the public freshly made around-the-clock starting in the wee hours of the 17^th, exactly at 12:01 a.m.

“And the first customer that comes in gets a very special prize,” promises Marge Wilson, owner of Marge’s Donut Den on 28th Street in Wyoming.

“We’re not selling any Paczkis in advance,” she warns. “Only on the 17th at 12:01 a.m.”

She is quick to add though that they’ll be taking orders ahead of time by phone.

“We’ll have a special line for order pick ups so that you don’t have to wait,” she says.

But if you do have to wait, you’re likely to be entertained. Marge has a 24-hour Paczki party planned that starts and ends with live family entertainment. Starting at midnight, Tom Briggs, a favorite Donut Den DJ, will play music and take requests until 7 a.m. Then the duet Irv and Carol take over with signing, accordion and piano music. The Hark Up Band steps in at 7 p.m. for music and dancing until 10 p.m.

“We want families to come in the evening wearing their pajamas – with underwear please – to dance, party and eat Paczkis. It’s going to be a lot of fun for everyone!”

This is the first time Marge has been open 24-hours for Paczki Day. At 75, she admits she has the reinforcements of her three adult children and their families to help tip the scales on Fat Tuesday.

“I’m here for twenty hours anyway. I figured another four hours wouldn’t hurt.

“Besides, my daughter is coming in from Arizona for this and my other kids are taking a day off work to be here so what better way to catch up on visiting than here at work having fun?”

Fun for this family means making 12 varieties of fresh Paczkis for customers. Order by phone now or the day of Fat Tuesday and choose from fillings of: apple, apricot, peach, lemon, blueberry, cherry, chocolate, custard, raspberry, strawberry, white creme or prune jam – the traditional choice.

So if you want to indulge one last time before Lent, stop by Marge’s Donut Den and treat yourself to a few fresh Paczkis and a cup of coffee. Then if you feel guilty, stay and dance it off! Remember – pajamas (with underwear) are optional.

For more information go to: Marge’s Donut Den website.