stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2026-02-17 11:29 am
stevenpiziks) wrote2026-02-17 11:29 am
Packzi Day, 2026
Today is paczki day! Packzi ("poonch-key" or "putch-key") are extra rich jelly donuts made for Fat Tuesday as a way to clear the kitchen of butter, sugar, and eggs for Lent in Poland. Michigan was a hub for Polish immigrants for a long time, and they made paczki into a local annual tradition. Even non-Catholics can participate! :) The traditional filling is prune (because dried fruit was all you had in winter back then), but now you can find them filled with just about anything, including custard or chocolate.
You're only supposed to have them on the Tuesday before Lent, though it's considered acceptable to bend this rule a little, and bakeries often start selling them a week or two early. The local grocery stores hook up with some a commercial bakery that mass-produces them for WEEKS before Lent, but afficionados can tell when you eat one that it's just a regular jelly donut rebranded as a paczki. Watered-down, cheat paczki. Bleah!
This morning, officially paczki day, I went down to Dom's Bakery, a local bakery hotspot. The place was founded in the ... forties? fifties? by an Italian family. A couple decades ago, the family sold the bakery to a Cambodian family, who took over seamlessly. So now we have an Italian bakery in America run by Cambodians. Only in the USA!
The line was long, but the ONLY thing for sale today was paczki. The entire display case was stuffed with rows and rows of them. More paczki waited on tray stacks in the kitchen area. People were walking out with full bags, boxes, and packing crates. (Well, not really packing crates, but we probably would use them if we could.)
I bought two. I'm alone in the house today, and more than that would probably kill me. And day-old paczki are absolutely not edible! I ate one, and it was still warm.
So, so good. I want to eat lots of them all year, but then they wouldn't be special, would they? It's probably for the best, then.
You're only supposed to have them on the Tuesday before Lent, though it's considered acceptable to bend this rule a little, and bakeries often start selling them a week or two early. The local grocery stores hook up with some a commercial bakery that mass-produces them for WEEKS before Lent, but afficionados can tell when you eat one that it's just a regular jelly donut rebranded as a paczki. Watered-down, cheat paczki. Bleah!
This morning, officially paczki day, I went down to Dom's Bakery, a local bakery hotspot. The place was founded in the ... forties? fifties? by an Italian family. A couple decades ago, the family sold the bakery to a Cambodian family, who took over seamlessly. So now we have an Italian bakery in America run by Cambodians. Only in the USA!
The line was long, but the ONLY thing for sale today was paczki. The entire display case was stuffed with rows and rows of them. More paczki waited on tray stacks in the kitchen area. People were walking out with full bags, boxes, and packing crates. (Well, not really packing crates, but we probably would use them if we could.)
I bought two. I'm alone in the house today, and more than that would probably kill me. And day-old paczki are absolutely not edible! I ate one, and it was still warm.
So, so good. I want to eat lots of them all year, but then they wouldn't be special, would they? It's probably for the best, then.