DETROIT (WWJ) - Today is an unofficial holiday for many in the metro Detroit area: Fat Tuesday, also known as Paczki Day.
A Polish-American tradition, several celebrate on Fat Tuesday — the day before Lent begins — by gorging on paczki, which are calorie-laden, deep-fried pastries filled with the most delicious creams, custards and jellies.
Traditionally, the reason for making paczki (pronounced “pooonch-key”) was to use up all the lard, sugar, eggs and fruit in the house, because the ingredients were forbidden to be consumed due to Catholic fasting practices during Lent.
The tradition has evolved over the years and now, come Fat Tuesday, Americans rush out to get the tastiest paczki they can find.
Ask any metro Detroiter and they'll tell you, the best place to go for pazcki is Hamtramck.
That's where WWJ’s Charlie Langton found Cara Carpenter standing in line at the New Palace Bakery, which wrapped around the building and around the corner. Carpenter made the trip from Oxford just for paczki.
"These are amazing pastries. You cannot get pastries like this anywhere else," she said. "We love it enough to do this. It's amazing. I'm here on order for everybody in my family."
The line was just as long outside New Martha Washington Bakery, where Will Gray, of Detroit, was waiting for his Fat Tuesday fix.
"So far it's three in a row. I've had three in a row," he said. "I can take it. I have a great metabolism. A very nice metabolism."
Over in Detroit, Violet Cvetkovski had her hands full preparing paczki at National Bakery on State Fair near I-75.
"I started with a blueberry and then I had a strawberry and then I had a cherry and then back to blueberry," she said.
Paczki Day is celebrated in coincidence with Mardi Gras. Celebrations at bakeries, restaurants and bars will take place all across the city on Tuesday, including a pub crawl, a paczki 5K and a paczki eating contest.