I grew up in a small town. I moved here from a slightly larger town, one with chain supermarkets and an actual mall. Despite this, I still did my grocery shopping at a locally-owned market, the kind where high school kids helped carry out your bags, there was a single butcher on duty, and your spaghetti sauce options numbered about 12, instead of the 48 you see in a Publix or Giant Eagle or Kroger's or (insert regional supermarket chain here).
I loved my market, but the thing I loved most about it was Fat Tuesday. Why?
Pączki are traditional Polish doughnuts. Pączki is the plural form of the word pączek in Polish, but many English speakers use paczki as singular and paczkis as plural.A pączek is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened sphere and filled with plums or other sweet filling. A traditional filling is marmalade made from fried rose buds. Fresh paczki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing or bits of fried orange zest. Pączki have been known in Poland at least since the Middle Ages. Jędrzej Kitowicz has described that during the reign of the August III under influence of French cooks who came to Poland at that time, pączki dough baked in Poland has been improved, so that pączki became lighter, spongier, and more resilient.
If you're not Polish, and didn't grow up in the Midwest or another Polish enclave, then you've probably never tasted the sheer goodness that is paczki (POONCH-key!). Seriously, it's the most amazingly succulent item a human being can place into her mouth. Like most Fat Tuesday traditions (though it's actually a Shrove Thursday tradition somewhat corrupted in America) it celebrates the fasting of Lent by using up all the sugar, lard, and butter in the house. Inject some jelly doughnut filling (plums are traditional, but my market only made a few boxes of that variety; my favorite was raspberry) and you have a giant, 1000+ calorie meal that puts anything Krispy to shame.
LOOK AT THAT GOODNESS!!!
Anyway, they come five to a box, and you're strongly advised not to eat any more than two in a single day, though I know some hardcore guys from Chicago who can put down a whole box in one sitting. I'm hoping paczki make their way to the professional eating circuit soon, because it would immediately end the careers of the Joey Chestnuts and Eater X-es of the world.
There's only one place I know of in the area that has them, and it's down in St. Petersburg. I have far too much to attend to today to get down there, but if you read this, and live in St. Pete, head by Ruta Polish Bakery on Central Ave. They might not have any for sale -- it's one of those "put your orders in six months in advance" products -- but if they do, you will thank me later. Your scale or diet or significant other will not. But you, my friend, oh my goodness. You will.
Oh, and there's something political going on today.
What I will miss most about Cleveland are the ethnic treats like Pączki. This is my first Pączki-less Mardi Gras in at least five years.