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The Carnival is over and Lent – the 40-day period (not counting the Sundays) of fasting, leading up to Easter – is now here. In Poland, quite adequately, Lent coincides with early spring, the gloomiest of Polish climate's six seasons.<ref>The six traditional (that is, pre-global-climate-change) Polish seasons are: ''zima'' (winter), ''przedwiośnie'' (early spring), ''wiosna'' (spring), ''lato'' (summer), ''złota jesień'' (golden autumn) and ''szaruga jesienna'' (grey autumn). Or, in the words of a poet:
{{Cytat
| <poem>In Poland there's there’s six seasons
not more than that, I guess
early spring
== Poonchkey or Paunchkey? ==
Let's start with the linguistic part. The Polish word for a doughnut (usually, in the shape of a flattened sphere, with some kind of filling in it) is ''"pączek"'', pronounced: {{pron|pawn|chek}}. The plural form, used for more than one doughnut, is ''"pączki"'', which is pronounced: {{pron|pawnch|kee}}. The latter word has nothing to do with packages. That's ''"paczki"'' (without the hook-shaped squiggle), pronounced: {{pron|pahtch|kee}}. It's the plural form of ''"paczka"'' ({{pron|pahtch|kah}}), or "a package". As you can see, the explanation you can occasionally come across in America that ''pączki'' are [https://twitter.com/BethelBakery/status/949661885393199105 ''"little packages of goodness"''"] is as sweet as it is wrong. So where does the Polish word for doughnuts actually come from?
"''Pączek"'' is a diminutive form of the word ''"pąk"'' ({{pron|pawnk}}), which is a botanical term referring to a flower bud or leaf bud. What do doughnuts have to do with flower buds, you may ask. Not so much, if you're thinking about the American ring-shaped donuts, but it's different with the ball-shaped Polish ones. Originally, the word ''"pąk"'' referred to anything that is round, bulging (''pękate''), swollen (''napęczniałe'') and about to burst (''pęknąć''). Ultimately, all these ''"pąk- / pęk- / pącz- / pęcz-"'' words are most likely of onomatopoeic origin, meaning that they're supposed to resemble the sound of something swollen that is bursting.<ref> {{Cyt
| wydawca = Instytut Języka Polskiego Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
| rok = 2010
}}</ref> In all these regions, ''pączki'' was, in fact, pronounced: {{pron|poonch|kee}}. If you're reading this, then I assume you don't speak much Polish, but if you're interested in examples, then you can find a few in the [[:pl:Punczki z powidłami na tłusty wtorek#Pączki czy pųczki?|Polish-language version of this blog post]]; look for ''"pónczki"'' or ''"punczki"'' (the spelling may vary). And all these regions produced waves of migrants who would settle in the United States or Canada, bringing their own pronunciation of ''"pączki"'', as well as the recipes, to the banks of the Great Lakes.
== Fat Days ==
