WARSAW (Reuters) – Poles formed long queues to buy doughnuts on their “Fat Thursday”, piling in for the sugary treats even though double-digit inflation has taken a bite out of their income.
On the last Thursday before Lent, the period when Christians traditionally fast before Easter, Poles stuff their faces with doughnuts in a festival of calorific indulgence.
But with the cost of ingredients 20-30% higher than a year ago according to bank BNP Paribas, hungry shoppers in Warsaw had to fork out more for their favourite deep-fried delicacies.
“Last Fat Thursday, doughnuts cost 3.50 zlotys ($0.78) each,” said Syliwa Tomaszkiewicz, 45, owner of the Zagozdzinski Confectionery Workshop. “In August, we had to raise it by as much as 1 zloty.”
Nevertheless, the queue outside Tomaszkiewicz’s shop stretched for hundreds of metres on Thursday.
“Watching this queue I think about two hours,” said 25-year-old student Dominika Maria when asked how long she expected to wait.
For 73-year-old pensioner Jadwiga Staniewska, it was important to keep the tradition of Fat Thursday alive.
“It’s really good, because young people keep this tradition going,” she said. “So I like it very, very much… because even though today is not the warmest day, they endure it.”
($1 = 4.4851 zlotys)
(Reporting by Kuba Stezycki, writing by Alan Charlish, editing by Mark Heinrich)
