The “Time to make the donuts” may first have been recognized in 1984, but the time to stuff the paczki for Schererville’s Carpathia Polish Deli’s paczki bacchanal started at 6 a.m. sharp Tuesday morning.
Three thousand paczki, a 15th century formerly savory but now sweet treat — though still less sweet than the doughnut — arrived from the Polish superstore’s Chicago supplier unfilled for its chef and his helpers to come at with all flavors of deliciousness: plum, apricot, rosehip, and Advocat, a “big boozy pudding” for the hardcore enthusiasts, and cherry, lemon, raspberry, blueberry, custard, and Nutella for those who want to balance their paczki love with their doughnut devotion.
As if the flavor array wasn’t tantalizing enough, there were glazed paczki, paczki covered in powdered sugar, and then paczki frosted in orange, pink and white with chocolate drizzle for those who really had a sweet tooth to vanquish.
Filling a paczek is somewhat of a delicate task, but one with which the Carpathia staff is well-familiar.
“Really, it takes them a couple minutes to fill a whole tray,” said store manager Conner Allen, who himself was running around the store making sure everything was moving along.
About every 10 minutes or so, a man would come strolling out from the kitchen with a rolling cart and few more dozens to rotate in or refill as customers kept filing in, first for their paczki, then straight to the deli counter.
“About half of them are gone already, and we’ll definitely sell out all 3,000 today,” Allen said as another worker brought out four boxes of a 20-dozen order. “We have them all the time, though, so there will always be more.”
Paula Franchimont, of Crown Point, joined her husband on his paczki quest Tuesday morning after telling him about Carpathia Deli. The two were going to add a few of the classics to their haul.
“We got apricot, plum and one of the Advocat to try,” Franchimont said. “I’m Slovenian, and we have a similar dessert, krofi, so I prefer them unfilled.”
Even if they hadn’t gotten out to Carpathia, the Franchimonts wouldn’t have been completely paczki-less for the start of Lent, the 40-day Christian observance before Easter. Turns out, they have their own Paczki fairy in the neighborhood.
“Our neighbor makes them, and she always leaves two on every porch,” Franchimont said. “She didn’t get to today because of the rain, but she let us know she has them for us.”
Luke Podgorny, of Highland, had never seen paczki with frosting, but that wasn’t going to stop him from a good time.
“We usually like the cream cheese-filled,” he said as he filled up his dozen. “We always like to try local, and we go every Fat Tuesday, then come back for more when they’re on sale at the end of the week.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
