OAKMONT, Pa. — Forty years ago, Marc Serrao started making paczki. Serrao had just started his modest bakery in the suburban Pittsburgh river town when he decided to try his hand at the doughy confection, pronounced poonch-kee, which is filled with rich white sweet creams or candied jam fruits and traditionally made by Polish bakeries on Shrove, or Fat Tuesday.

“I made a batch of them for Fat Tuesday that year, which was three dozen,” Serrao said. “And I was so excited with how they turned out that I called my wife and told her not only how good they were but how they sold out that day.”

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Today, Serrao starts making them on the Feast of Epiphany, or Jan. 6. Most bakeries stop producing them on Fat Tuesday, the day in many Christian religions before 40 days of fasting and Lent. But he sells them until Easter Sunday.

Last Fat Tuesday, Seeao sold nearly 7,000 in one day alone. Last year, he sold well over 250,000 during the entire season. On the day before Fat Tuesday, the line stretches throughout the 20,000-square-foot bakery and out the door. Despite three large parking lots, people are parking on the street or circling the block to find a spot, all just to grab their favorite confectioneries.

Serrao began working in bakeries at age 13. A couple of years ago, he tripled the size of his original bakery. It is now lined with signature cookies, cakes, and doughnuts, along with a nearly 100-seat cafe for people to enjoy sweets and breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

Tony, his son and partner, is busy in the back of the retail side of the bakery. Here, hundreds of bakers are making a variety of sweets from scratch. Today he is making paczki: kneading the airy dough, stuffing a batch with rich cream, pouring a glaze over the top, and then adding a dusting of powdered sugar.

Paczki, Serrao explained, is the name for the Polish confectionery traditionally served on Fat Tuesday every year in preparation for the season of Lent. Polish immigrants brought Paczki with them when they immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century.

“They date back to the Middle Ages when families used up all of their sugar, butter, and eggs before the fasting period of Lent,” he said.

The bulk of Polish immigrants settled in the industrial Great Lakes area, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They brought not only their Catholic faith but also the foods intertwined with religious celebrations. The tight-knit footholds that they formed, often called “Polish patches,” were part of the melting pot of immigrants who shaped cities like Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit.

In the mid-20th century, Polish neighborhoods began to cross into Italian, German, Slovak, Serbian, Irish, Jewish, and Black neighborhoods. Thus, paczki went from being a specific Polish tradition to one that is enjoyed by families of all ethnic backgrounds.

I grew up getting paczki once a year at a bakery on Perrysville Avenue that is now long gone. It too had lines that went out the door. News stories across Detroit, Chicago, and Madison would offer tips to their readers on where to find them before Ash Wednesday.

Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, and some Protestants, all celebrate a day of excess before the fasting of Lent begins on Wednesday, when rich foods aren’t allowed.

“People don’t realize that paczki wasn’t really a total overindulgence,” Serrao said. “These immigrant, who had very little, went to their pantries and used up all the leftover berries, creams, butters, and sugars left over from Christmas. This is how you got the fillings for the doughnut.”

When Rust Belters became Sun Belters, paczki migrated with them. Publix supermarkets began carrying them in the 1980s, when more of the Midwest and Rust Belt working class moved south as jobs and opportunities in their hometowns began to evaporate. They brought their faith with them.

A study by Ryan Burger, a political scientist and statistician, found that while Catholic populations in places like Pennsylvania had declined, they had grown in the South. By 2023, the South had more Catholics than any other region.

Faith and food have always been intertwined. In Louisiana, Mardi Gras celebrations will feature parades, king cakes, beads, and alcohol. In the industrial Midwest, the overindulgence is with food. But by looking at the people chatting, forming connections while they wait in line for their paczki, or sitting at tables in the Oakmont Bakery comparing their confections, it is clear that something else is going on. Something that is often overlooked. Something good.

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Cheryl Finn agrees. She is sitting with her 19-year-old granddaughter, Angelina, and watching all of the interaction that the paczki brings.

“It is really simple if you think about it. It’s just a doughnut on the surface, and well, you never really want just one,” Finn laughs, adding, “But we tend to embrace traditions that marry faith and food. And somehow that brings us all together.”

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