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[[File:Antoni Zaleski, Luty.jpg|thumb|Typical February pastimes and rituals in 19th-century Warsaw according to Antoni Zaleski. What we have here are both joyful Carnival motifs (dancing parties, masked balls, sleigh rides, ice skating) and the somber celebration of Ash Wednesday. On the left-hand side, we can see a culinary allegory of the fight between Carnival and Lent: a beaming baker carrying a platter of ''pączki'' and, lurking in the shadow, a hooded fisherman holding a bunch of herrings.]]
Let's now tackle the calendar question: why does "Pączki Day" in America coincide with Fat Tuesday and not Fat Thursday as it does in Poland? Or maybe we should turn this question around: why doesn't Carnival in Poland culminate on the very last day before Lent, which would be logical, but six days earlier? What we can say for sure is that both Fat Days have something to do with Lent. After all, the entire goal of celebrating Carnival was to have fun in advance and also to use up the stored food that would be prosribed proscribed during Lent and wouldn't last until Easter. In the days of yore, people used to take fasting more seriously, which also meant that pre-fasting revelry was more vibrant and heartfelt. So let's start by looking at how people used to fast in the past.
The exact rules as to what kinds of food were forbidden during fasting periods and how long these periods were changed quite a lot from time to time and from one place to another. Lent was different for the Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants. But even within one denomination, say, Catholic, fasting wasn't always and everywhere the same. Convincing freshly converted Christians to fasting would have been most challenging; King Boleslav the Brave of Poland, for example, used to encourage his subjects to periodic vegetarianism by punching out the teeth of the unconvinced.<ref>{{Cyt
| rok = 2018
| strony = 156
}}</ref> But sometimes members of some local community, wishing to atone for their sins, usually when faced by some kind of disaster, would voluntarily vow to fast even more strictly than required by Church authorities; the entire community would then follow this more rigorous fast for decades until the local bishop, or even the pope himself, released them from the vow. This meant that fasting customs could differ from country to country and even from diocese to diocese. Generally speaking, fasting was very strict in the early Middle Ages and was gradually liberalized liberalised as time went by. But in Poland liberal novelties have always taken longer to take hold, so Polish people were considered particularly strict fasters for centuries. And Masovians, who lived in a northeastern backwater part of Poland, had the reputation of the kind of folks who would rather kill a man (especially one who broke fast himself) than eat cheese on a Friday.<ref>''Ibid.'', p. 173</ref>
And so, Polish people used to fast not only on every Friday (as many still do), but also on every Saturday and Wednesday, on every eve of each of several dozen major holidays, on [[Good Humour, Good Health#Humoral Diet in Practice|Ember Days]] (three in each quarter of the year) and during the entire Advent and Lent (which also happened to be longer than they are today). On average, every other day was a lean, or fasting, day.<ref>''Ibid.'', p. 158</ref> Nowadays, Lent covers the period of 40 days (not counting Sundays) prior to Easter. But it used to start 17 days earlier than that. This additional 17-day period of fasting was then declared optional and, known as Shrovetide or Pre-Lent, it was treated as a time of preparation for Lent proper. Some of you may remember me mentioning Shrovetide in my post about [[Holey Breads|holey breads]], the pretzels and ''obwarzanki'' traditionally eaten on lean days. And also about how the Duchess of Masovia paid a visit to Queen Hedwig of Poland during Pre-Lent; when they dined together, Saint Hedwig ate only herrings and ''obwarzanki'' (ring-shaped breads), whereas the Duchess, who opted not to fast during that time, had chicken instead.<ref>{{ Cyt
[[File:Fat Thuesday.png|thumb|center|800px|The Carnival/Lent calendar for February 2020]]
Pre-Lent contained three Sundays, known as ''Septuagesima, Sexagesima'' and ''Quinquagesima'', that is, "Seventieth", "Sixtieth" and "Fiftieth" in Latin. These names obviously make no sense, because Sundays tend to come every seven days, rather than every ten days, and there's no way to count 70, 60 or 50 days from any of them down to Easter. Pre-Lent is also observed in the Orthdox Orthodox Church, but it's more rigorous than the optional fast of its Catholic equivalent. The Orthodox use this time to gradually remove certain food types from their diet. They call the second Sunday of Pre-Lent "Meatfare Sunday", as it's the day when they say farewell to meat. They can still consume dairy products during the next week, until Cheesefare Sunday. The next day is Clean Monday, when Orthodox Lent begins; there's no Ash Wednesday in this tradition.
[[File:Carnival Europe map.png|thumb|upright|left|The culminating day of Carnival in various parts of Europe:
| strony = 488
| url = https://pl.wikisource.org/wiki/Strona:PL_Gloger-Encyklopedja_staropolska_ilustrowana_T.4_496.jpg
}}, own translation</ref> Chasing your vodka with herrings was a safety measure; this way, you may be still partying on Ash WedensdayWednesday, but there's no sin in doing so.
[[File:Karnawał na świecie.jpg|thumb|Carnival traditions around the world: ''Carnevale'' in Venice, ''Carnaval'' in Rio de Janeiro, ''Mardi Gras'' in New Orleans and ''Tłusty Czwartek'' in Poland. Which one do you like best?]]