Day 41 - Get Paczki in Hamtramck on Paczki Day

Date: February 16th, 2010

As I've looked for things to do during this project, I've found that I could probably eat celebratory food for something every single day.  So... that's probably not a great idea for my health.  However, there are some holidays that, were not for food, would simply not exist.  That is the case with the appropriately named Pączki Day.  Pączki are Polish pastries that are generally only made right before Lent.  Pączki Day is more commonly known as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras.

At first I wondered why Mardi Gras is so much more commonly known than Pączki Day.  Then I realized that I was trying to compare a holiday celebrated by standing in line for donuts to one celebrated by watching women lift up their shirts for $0.05 worth of plastic beads.  Its a testament to young male laziness.  Well, technically both celebrations fit that bill, but that's neither here nor there.

I went to class on Tuesday morning with visions of Pączki dancing in my head.  I hopped in the car and drove to Hamtramck.  Its a famous neighborhood in Detroit, known for its Polish population.  In addition to a few other, largely Polish, neighborhoods and towns in the United States, Hamtramck hosts Pączki related activities all day on Fat Tuesday.  They treat it like St. Patrick's Day.  Many of the bars open early and begin serving large quantities of booze to their patrons.

I drove out there with Justin and we were looking around for a place serving Pączki.  I hadn't... exactly... done my research about where to go for events.  So... we just drove to Hamtramck.  Now, Hamtramck isn't just one city block - its several miles around.  In other words, its not enough just to drive to the area and look around for Pączki.  We called Momstar* and got an address of a bar that was hosting celebrations, but by that time we'd found a place with a big sign that said Pączki on it and walked in.

Turns out, the bar we walked into wasn't so much a bar as it was a lodge.  A lodge for a fraternal order.  Specifically, the Order of the Moose.  They were incredibly friendly and had jello shots in Pączki flavors.  I didn't partake, having driven out there, but I couldn't pass up a chance to see Justin walk around with a couple shots in him before breakfast.  I was highly amused.  The Mooses (does that pluralize?  its not the same thing as the animal) were very friendly and really seemed to want us to join their Order.

They did not, however, have any real Pączki left.  They had held a breakfast earlier that morning that was incredibly popular and one of their members had made some homemade mini-Pączki, but not the kind you read about in all the papers and magazines.  They were kind enough to recommend a local bakery that they said made great Pączki and wasn't likely to have a line out the door like a lot of other places.

 

They were right.

There wasn't nearly as much fanfare around the town as I expected,  but it was still a nice excursion.  I used the trip as an excuse to bring some Pączki to my gramma, which she seemed to enjoy.  All in all, it was a nice, light, fun day.  It was interesting cause we could tell there was something going on in the city, but it definitely was not New Orleans style Mardi Gras.  That being said, Pączki is delicious.  If you have the chance, I really must recommend you try it.

*My mom and I have a running gag where I call her and ask for Momstar.  Then she knows I need help with something.  Momstar is one of the reasons I made it back to Ann Arbor when I had food poisoning in Chicago a couple years back.  The other reason was Jeff, my boyfriend at the time, who called her and checked in, got directions and gave her status reports every fifteen minutes for the entire drive back.  It was one of the nicest things that's ever been done for me.