People Line Up to Buy Paczki for Fat Tuesday

It’s Fat Tuesday, a day of celebration and indulgence before the start of the Lenten season.

Fat Tuesday is also Paczki day for Polish Roman Catholics and many bakeries around Connecticut took part in the tradition.

At Roly Poly Bakery in New Britain, they’re selling a sweet polish treat for a reason.

“Fat Thursday and Fat Tuesday are like the biggest batches we make,” said Barbara Szupryczynski. She and her husband own Roly Poly Bakery and said Fat Thursday is a polish tradition and Fat Tuesday is celebrated mostly in America.

Whatever day you celebrate, it’s a good reason to get your Paczki and plenty of people were lined up on Tuesday taking part in this pastry party.

“Paczki, they are actually doughnuts but they are made very specifically toward the Polish tradition,” said Mark Nikola from Middlebury. “My wife craves these all the time so I better come home with these.”

For Catholics, Fat Tuesday is the last day of eating these richer kind of foods before the leaner days of lent begins.

“Today, Fat Tuesday and last week, Fat Thursday and then I also stopped by on Saturday because the ones on Thursday were gone,” said Irena Markow.

Markow lives in New Britain and has been back to buy several batches of paczki for her grandkids. She said with so many fillings and flavors, everyone loves these puffy pastries.

“Here they are magnificent! The dough is so light, they put a lot of jams in the middle,” said Markow.

“Variety of flavors. They are very tasty, very puffy and not too sweet just perfect,” said Szupryczynski.

A perfect Fat Tuesday Tradition. With the bakery open until 7 p.m., these patrons had one piece of paczki advice.

“Better get here early because they are going fast,” said Nikola.