Today we celebrate a polish donut, today is Paczki Day. This is observed annually the day before Ash Wednesday.
Paczki donuts are fried dough filled with jams, custards or other sweet jellies like fillings which bring back memories in the Middles Ages. A pastry tradition with a polish history enjoyed yearly before lent.
In Poland, Paczki is eaten on Fat Thursday which is the last Thursday prior to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. In North America, particularly in the large Polish communities and cities across the Midwest and Northeast, Paczki day is celebrated annually by immigrants and locals alike.
There are different ways to pronounce Paczki. Some pronounce it PUUNCH-kee, PUUNSH-kee, PUNCH-kee or PAWNCH-kee. Traditionally Paczki in Poland is made and eaten when foods are forbidden especially foods containing lard, sugar, eggs, and fruit during Lent.
If you love donuts, you are probably a fun of Paczki donuts. So, today, celebrate this day by heading to your local grocery and grab a box of Paczki donuts. Share on social media your favorite using #PaczkiDay.
2004 “The Passion of the Christ” opens in the United States
The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s film about the last 44 hours of Jesus of Nazareth’s life, opens in theaters across the United States on February 25, 2004. Not coincidentally, the day was Ash Wednesday, the start of the Catholic season of Lent.
The star of action-packed blockbusters like the Lethal Weapon series and Braveheart, Gibson was earning more than $20 million per movie at the time he decided to direct The Passion of the Christ, for which he received no cash compensation. Largely based on the 18th-century diaries of Saint Anne Catherine Emmerich, the film was a true labor of love for Gibson, who later told Time magazine that he had “a deep need to tell this story…The Gospels tell you what basically happened; I want to know what really went down.” He scouted locations in Italy himself and had the script translated from English into Aramaic (thought to be Jesus’ first language) and Latin by a Jesuit scholar. Gibson’s original intention was to show The Passion of the Christ without subtitles, in an attempt to “transcend the language barriers with visual storytelling,” as he later explained. With dialogue entirely in Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic, the film was eventually released with subtitles.
(excerpted from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-passion-of-the-christ-opens-in-the-united-states)
