Now that all the paczkis have been eaten, take a look at how residents of Detroit celebrated the day before Lent.  Here’s how it was described in an article in the Detroit Free Press:

“It was another Fat Tuesday with an atmosphere of Opening Day/St. Patrick’s Day — and the emphasis on fat — along grid-locked Jos. Campau Avenue as partyers converged on the ancestral home of metro Detroit Poles for the Rust Belt Mardi Gras.

People lined up outside bakeries and Polish restaurants and crammed into bars.  It was all a tribute to paczki, the jelly-filled doughnuts with the powdered sugar on top that Poles have eaten for centuries, though it’s uncertain if anyone in the old country ever thought of injecting them with vodka or Jagermeister, as Hamtramck bars do in the 21st Century.  At one paczek-eating contest, a contestant gobbled eight and then barfed. The winner inhaled 14 in 15 minutes. Yum.”

Now, why didn’t we think of a paczki-eating contest?  Maybe next year…