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Traditional Polish celebration ‘Fat Thursday’ comes to Galway

Posted on: 24 Feb 2022

Joyce’s Supermarkets has joined the upcoming celebrations for the annual Polish ‘Fat Thursday’ tradition, which takes place on the 24th February. Selected stores across Galway will be stocking up on a range of delicious polish stuffed donuts, known as Pączków, to mark the occasion.

The team at Joyce’s are encouraging Galway natives to join in on the Fat Thursday tradition. The longstanding holiday takes place on the last Thursday before Ash Wednesday and is dedicated to indulging in large quantities of rich, sugary foods not usually consumed during lent, particularly donuts.

Across Poland, it is common for bakery queues to stretch around the street with people meeting with friends and family to enjoy sugary treats, which are fried rounds of glazed yeast dough often filled with rose-flavoured jam, but many recipe variants exist. Folklore even suggests that abstaining from eating these sweet pastries will bring back luck, so unsurprisingly, the average person in Poland consumes three ‘paczki’ every Fat Thursday.

Aisling Joyce, Director of Operations at Joyce’s Supermarkets, added: “We are delighted to be participating in this annual Polish tradition by stocking up on a delicious range of paczki from Soho Bake House. We are proud to offer a wide range of authentic, international foods to help our customers to celebrate global traditions at home. We look forward to celebrating with our customers this week.”

The festive treats will be available in store in Joyce’s Athenry, Oranmore, Fr Griffin, Knocknacarra, Headford, Doughiska and Ballybane.

The team at Joyce’s are also gearing up for Pancake Tuesday on the 1st of March, and have dedicated a section in stores to help customers to stock up on their favourite pancake ingredients and toppings before the big day.