Yesterday was Tlusty Czwartek, “Fat Thursday.” In Poland, it’s traditionally a time for paczki, doughnuts. “Ile paczków zjedliscie?” asked a friend in Poland of his Facebook friends. How many doughnuts did we eat? On Thursday we ate none. Dunkin Dounuts and Krispy Kreme don’t count. They’re doughnuts, not paczki. Traditionally filled with rose petal jam, Polish paczki really look, smell, and taste nothing like what we usually get in the South.

And then my wife discovered that Publix — of all places — sells “Original Paczki.”

They’re filled with raspberry jam instead of the ineffably good rose petal jam, and there’s something not quite right about the consistency of the crust, but they’re an acceptable substitute in a mid-sized Southern town.

Our daughter had one for dinner. “It’s time she learned what ‘Fat Thursday’ is all about,” my wife proclaimed. For her part, our daughter was less interested in the doughnut than the filling, which she fingered out and declared to be delicious.