Fat Tuesday!

Here's my question:  how have I not know about Fat Tuesday until this year???

Ethan sent out a text this week, reminding us that it's the season of Pączki. Not really knowing anything about the sweet treat, I just kind of humored him.  But when a list of the best places in Michigan to get Paczki came out on mlive.com, and knowing that it's one of those time-honored traditions that I love about the Mitten state, I knew I needed to get serious about it.

So Tuesday morning, I had a couple of minutes to burn between an allergy appointment and meeting Kathy for lunch.  So I scanned the list and saw that there's a bakery in Saline.  This is what I was met with when I walked in the door:

Turns out, bakeries count down to paczki day, and most of them have handmade signs with the number of days left.  And on the actual day (which is was), they have something like "TODAY!"

For those who are unfamiliar (look at me, acting now like I'm not some kind of neophyte) with paczki, let me tell you--it's just a jelly-filled doughnut, (in the words of Gordon Ramsay) elevated. From I hear, the cheap, crappy ones sold at the grocery stores are tasteless which is why finding a bakery that sells them is ideal.  Thankfully, a large Polish population ended up settling here in Michigan so many bakeries make them.

And I kid you not, it's the ONLY thing they make on Fat Tuesday.

An interesting side note that I heard while standing in line (more about that later):  Fat Tuesday is the day before Lent when obedient Catholics begin a 40 day fast from enjoyment and happiness.  Nowadays, Catholics have gotten lazy and just give up something stupid (aka chocolate, or peanut butter) while still enjoying their carefree lives.  But in the old days (think of Chocolat), it was a time of preparing for the sadness that comes with the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus.  So all the good Catholics would take anything tasty (which for poor Eastern Europeans in the mid-1800s consisted mostly of jarred fruit and lard) and put it in some lard-filled dough and eat it so that it wouldn't spoil and be wasted.  It was a last ditch effort to eat what you had on your shelves, I guess.

So I showed up in Saline at Benny's Bakery.  While there were stacks of boxes filled with paczki that people had reserved, there was just a small sampling left for those of us who were completely clueless.  They still had custard, apple, blueberry and prune.  

Now I ask you....who would want a prune doughnut??  So I got eight of the other varieties, and carried my box of yummy treats to lunch.

As it turns out, Kathy had bought some paczki (4 for $2.99 from Kroger), but she said she couldn't even get the first two down before throwing away the rest, so she figured she would just have to hope for better next year.  Imagine her surprise when I walked in with an entire box full of handmade paczki!  When the biscuits weren't delivered to our table at Cracker Barrel immediately, she was more than happy to dig into the paczki...and John joined her.  And while I'm not a jelly-filed doughnut kind of girl, I can't deny that the bite of custard paczki that I had was very delicious!

As it turned out, prune is the traditional flavor, and I guess I should have known that.  After all, Ethan came home from Poland eating all kinds of weird things....like beets, and carp that's been swimming in the bathtub.  I guess prunes should be added to that list.  If you're like me, you only think of prunes for one thing....

So, I figured that was the end of my paczki experience, but knowing myself, I probably should have known better ;-)

After lunch with Kathy, and with her telling us that she actually wasn't going to share any of her spoils with anyone, we headed to the storehouse to work, but once we got there, we discovered that there wasn't anything for us to do.

So I asked John if we could go into Hamtramck (the original Polish settlement in Detroit, and the most famous place for paczki).  There were two bakeries listed in the mlive.com article.  We were already in Detroit.  We headed out.

Let's go off on a tangent for a moment.

While watching Kathy eat paczki, and knowing how much she loves pastries, I asked her where she first started to eat paczki.  I kid you not, Kathy has repressed her entire life, so I'm always trying to spark some kind of memory from her.   She told me that she couldn't remember when she first heard of them or started eating them, or as she said, "You know, Larisa, on Jeopardy! how you just know an answer?  How it just comes from the recesses of your mind?"  Yeah, I know.  It's called MEMORIES...

Let's do a genealogical line-up, shall we?

Kathy Macholl Kennedy-->George Felix Macholl-->Anna Würdig-->Joseph Würdig 

Anna Würdig immigrated to the United States from Gdansk, Poland during the end of the 19th century along with several of her siblings and her mother.  Ann Würdig is Kathy's grandmother.  Now granted, according to my educated first born, Poland at that time was under German rule, and these ancestors came to the United States probably speaking German, but I have a feeling that paczki was a part of their life, seeing how much Kathy "unknowingly" loves it.  And knowing that her family was staunch Catholic until she ended up joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I've no doubt that it's very much a Macholl family tradition.

As Ethan said, "Food, man.  It can bring the generations together."  All those legacies?  Food is definitely one in Kathy's life...including the always passable rutabaga. ;-)

So it was about a 30 minute drive to Hamtramck, but the signs were obvious before we'd hit an actual city sign.  Polish flags flying everywhere.  Polish-American foundations.  Even streets with Polish-sounding names.

And the street that the two famous bakeries were on?  Joseph Campau street.

Joseph Campau.

Joseph Campau.

As I saw it on the GPS, I knew that I knew that street somehow.  But looking around, I knew I had never been in Hamtramck or the general area before.

And then it dawned on me.

Kathy's genealogy is really difficult to do because her family was full of immigrants, many of whom were either hiding from the fact that they weren't naturalized yet, or who were simply uneducated and avoided the census takers.  So in my research for her family in Detroit, I've had to resort to tracking them down using addresses on the census records.  And back in the day, I was pouring over the city phone books in the state archives in Lansing, trying to follow where they lived.  And guess where one of those addresses was?

You guessed it.  Joseph Campau street.

In fact, at this moment, I found the census record on the first try.  That family lived on that street for a very long while.

See the Macholls?  Anna Würdig married August Macholl  And their address and the street is listed on the far left.

And Kathy doesn't know why she likes paczki?  I tell you--she's like an onion.  I keep peeling away layers at a time.

So we parked right next to one of the bakeries, The New Martha Washington bakery.  It only had ten people lined up outside, so we figured we were doing well.  Unforuntately, standing outside in 12 degree temperatures, the line didn't move in 45 minutes.  When John looked through the window, he described two very old ladies, tying the string around the boxes like the sloths in Zootopia.  So he decided to try the bakery three blocks down, The New Palace Bakery.  (Not sure what's up with all the "new" bakeries.  Did they burn down at some point?)

That line looks nice and short, right?  45 minutes, and it didn't move.

His line was longer, but it was moving faster.  So once he got inside, and got a number, he called me, and I ditched my line.  Believe me, I was happy to head into the warmth and protection of walls ;-)

Wow!  While my little Benny's bakery had had four varieties of paczki, this bakery had more than I could count.  And all walls were covered with the selections.  And it was shoulder-to-shoulder in there.  But the ladies behind the counter were fast and knew what they were doing.  It was amazing!

Those red signs list all the flavors!

While waiting, there was, of course, Polish polka music playing.  And it made me think of Ethan Sulik and his polka dancing skills.  *sigh*

And if anyone has ever seen the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine are waiting in a bakery, I seriously felt like I was living it.  I just needed a chocolate "babka" and a black and white cookie ;-)

So we walked out with a dozen.  Two of every variety including chocolate cream and pineapple!

And once we had them, Ethan texts us and tells us to get the "rose" flavor.  It's traditional as well.  Yep, too late AGAIN!

And oh, what a tragedy. We couldn't get back to the storehouse in time to pack the meat because I had volunteered to substitute at the temple ;-)

So as we were driving to the temple, we dug in.  I mean, why not?  I can fake sadness for the next 40 days for a taste of those babies!

And once we got to the temple, I had the "bright" idea of taking them in with us.  There's a little kitchenette in the waiting room.  I've never seen any workers bring in treats, and I wasn't sure that it was kosher, but the worst people could do was not eat them.

Well let me tell you--I let my temple peep, Sister Hamlin, know about them, and before our shift had even started, she bee-lined it into the waiting room.  And by the time we left our shift, all but ONE was gone!  And these aren't little pastries.  They're big old things!  When word got around that they were bought in Hamtramck, there was no stopping our geriatric temple peeps (don't they have diabetes, or something?)  In fact, when I went to take the box at the end of the shift, Brother Allen was literally standing in front of the box with a napkin under his mouth in one hand, his head tipped back, and the paczki in his other hand, above his mouth, quickly disappearing.  After all, we don't want to leave a powdered sugar mess in the temple, right? ;-)

I don't know if we'll be here next year for Fat Tuesday, but I can definitely cross off that item from my Michigan to-do list!