Sunday, 9 March 2014

Fat Thursday - "Tłusty Czwartek" an old Polish tradition

Fat Thursday is a traditional Christian feast marking the last Thursday before Lent and is associated with the celebration of Carnival. Because Lent is a time of fasting, the next opportunity to feast would be after Easter. In Poland it is traditionally a day dedicated to eating, when people meet at homes or cafés with their friends and relatives and eat large quantities of sweets, cakes and other meals usually not eaten during Lent. Among the most popular dishes served on that day are "pączki" fist-sized doughnuts filled with rose marmalade, and "faworki", French dough fingers served with lots of powdered sugar. As a Polish superstition says, if you don't eat at least one donut on that day, you won't be successful the whole year. I decided not to tempt fate and had four myself. Our students were not worse than me in this competition, as you can see in the photos :-)
I know in other countries there are similar traditions. Could you tell us how you celebrate
the ending of the carnival? 


Marmalade-filled doughnuts
Polish "faworki"





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4 comments:

  1. Unknown13 March 2014 at 08:55

    This is really interesting. In Malta lent started on Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday and thus the eating of sweets is done on Tuesday, similar to Mardi Gras in France.

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  2. Ms. Joanne20 March 2014 at 20:55

    Those sweets look delicious! We pretty much do the same, woth carnival coming before lent and here we enjoy the 'prinjolata' and 'perlini' during carnival. Both are sweets made mostly with nuts.

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  3. Ms. Joanne20 March 2014 at 20:55

    Those sweets look delicious! We pretty much do the same, woth carnival coming before lent and here we enjoy the 'prinjolata' and 'perlini' during carnival. Both are sweets made mostly with nuts.

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  4. Unknown2 April 2014 at 21:30

    Lovely, similar traditions :) ! Ms. Joanne, you forgot the figolli too :)

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