Last week, while I was scrolling through Facebook, I came across this page. Now Carnival, Shrove Tuesday, I am familiar with, but Fat Thursday was totally new to me. I discovered the day is a traditional Catholic Christian feast marking the last Thursday before Lent and is associated with the celebration of Carnival. Being of Polish descent, I had no recollection of ever celebrating this day and decided to investigate a little further. Apparently the day is also called Thusty Czwartek in Poland whereby people purchase their favorite pastries, including paczki, which are large deep-fried pieces of especially rich dough traditionally filled with plum or rose hip jam.

In Greece, the Greeks celebrate Tsiknopempti, Thursday of the Smoke or Grilled Meat and is celebrated 11 days before Clean Monday (which marks the start of the fasting period of Lent). Italy’s Giovedi Grasso is not very different from Martedi Grasso (Shrove Tuesday) and in Venice at the turn of the twentieth century it was marked by masquerades and a battle of flowers on the Plaza. In Spain, this celebration is called jueves lardera celebrated with a square pastry called a bizcocho and a round pastry called a mona. Germany’s Weiberfastnacht is an unofficial holiday in the Rhineland, where work ends before noon and celebrations start at 11:11 am. In Rosenmontag, people wear costumes and celebrate in pubs and in the streets. Beueler Weiberfastnacht, celebrated in the Bonn district is a “women’s carnival in Beuel” with the symbolic storming of the Beuel town hall. Syrian Catholics have celebrated the day as “Drunkard’s Thursday” with dolmas as the traditional food.

Now we all may be familiar with Carnival and Shrove Tuesday, but I just may try a few of these ideas next year.

Information curtesy of: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/lent_1.shtml and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Thursday