02/20/2007

Paczki Power

Manistee goes wild for prune-filled pastries

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Special to the Record-Eagle
Look for Tammie Kruse dressed as Prunella Paczki today at Glen's Market in Manistee, where she is assistant service manager.

MANISTEE — Tammie Kruse will spend today stuffed inside a life-size Polish pastry.

Her homemade "Prunella Paczki” costume is a tribute to the prune-packed paczkis people will put away on Fat Tuesday. Kruse will don the Prunella persona during Mardi Gras festivities dedicated to the toothsome treat at Glen's Market in Manistee, where she is assistant service manager.

All varieties of the popular pre-Lenten sweet are flying off bakery shelves throughout northern Michigan, but the traditional filling is still a favorite in Prunella's heavily Catholic hometown.

"We are actually the unofficial Polish capital of the north ... so we sell an awful lot,” said Pam Lorenz, the Manistee market's store director. "Prune is the most popular.”

Prunella, however, is one-of-a-kind. The costume took about 10 hours to create; there is no paczki pattern. Kruse, who stitched outfits for theater performances and Halloween, began with "two large circles of fabric.”

"The rest of it evolved,” she said.

The wide-eyed pastry lady sports striped purple tights, her

golden brown body topped with a giant bow. And then, there's the "luscious red lips,” as her creator called the coquettish concoction's perfectly puckered kisser.

"My mother actually came up with Prunella's name, and on all the fine details, I always consult my mother,” Kruse said.

Though paczki pride may run wide in Manistee, bakers everywhere prepared for Fat Tuesday. Employees at Potter's Fine Pastries in Traverse City will work a nearly 36-hour shift to ready for the rush.

"It just started with us maybe 10 or 12 years ago, and now it is to the point where it is the single busiest day of the year,” said Kathy Potter.

There, a paczki weighs a whopping five to six ounces, and sells for 98 cents each. The shop will make more than 12,000 in flavors including apple, black raspberry, cherry, white cream, lemon and strawberry.

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Baker Mitch Hosler lifts paczkis and puts them onto a rack after covering them with a glaze. Potter's Bakery planned to make 12,000 for Fat Tuesday.

Custard is the store's best-seller. Prune is "down on the bottom of the list,” Potter said.

The pastries contain more lard and eggs than the average doughnut and are fried longer and completely submerged, said Clayton Brown, owner of Johan's Pastry Shop of Petoskey. The bakery made 700 dozen by Monday morning. Their sweet sales decline during Lent, so Johan's uses paczki season to get rid of stock, exactly the treat's historic intent.

Brown said paczki appreciators will be at the door this morning when the bakery opens.

Dave Bodziak will tap his Polish grandmother's recipe when Bojack's Bake Shop whips up "a couple hundred dozen” of the pastries. The Mancelona shop owner doesn't fully understand the pull of the paczki.

"You got me on that one,” he said. "(It's) something different that they can't get all the time.”

There is one thing you won't find at Bojack's.

"I can't sell the prune. We used to make it, but that is the old tradition.”

Don't tell Prunella.

"I used to eat only prune, but I've gotten brave,” Kruse said. "I had an apricot one for breakfast this morning.”