My second and third generation immigrant parents spoke Polish whenever they didn’t want me to know what they were saying, and like any kid the idea of learning the language never crossed my mind.
M0st of my limited Polish language skills were learned from a 78rpm – I think – recording we had around the house: “The Czarnina Kid” by the Milwaukee deejay Mad Man Michaels.
It’s a “Dragnet”-style novelty record about a detective searching for the title fugitive along what was then the Polish corridor of W. Lincoln Ave. “from 6th St. to 16th St., the world’s lonesome-est, most heart breaking mile.”
In a recurring gag the cop and his partners greet each other by saying, Dziękuję (jean-kuya, or thank you), Dzień dobry (jean-dough-bray, or good morning) and Gene Autry.
“There we were,” says Michaels in a Jack Webb staccato. “Three Polish cowboys. We put our heads together and tried to trade them for one good head on a tall glass of beer.”
Michaels was the radio name of John Michael Hornbach – also known as John Michaels – who worked at WOKY-AM from 1953 to 1960. After he joined WEMP-AM in 1961 WOKY’s owners sued the station when it attempted to use his “Mad Man” pseudonym. Read the filings in that court case here.
I don’t know much Polish but do know czarnina was a duck blood soup with duck meat and prunes and served over potatoes or egg noodles that my grandmother made. I remember my aunts bringing over Mason jars full of duck blood from Polish butcher shops.
For, I’m going to guess, health reasons, you can’t buy duck blood anymore. So when I made it for my elderly relatives I used duck broth and added Kitchen Bouquet to give it that blood-colored hue.
Thanks to Frankie Yankovic I also knew kiszka was polish blood sausage. It was spelled differently on his recording of “Who Stole the Keeshka,” with its “someone call the cops” stinger.
These tangents are brought to you today by paczki, which most everyone knows is a Polish donut.
They are jelly filled “fried super-sized mounds of doughy goodness,” said Mo Rocca in a “CBS Sunday Morning report a few years back. “425 calories apiece.” My favorite is the hard to find prune-filled.
Paczkis have become associated with Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent fasting begins, and you will hear local TV newsers talking about them and reporting from bakeries around town selling them. The collision of consonants in the word means that they, and you, are probably pronouncing it wrong.
The correct pronunciation is a variation on punch-key, but some pronounce it “Paschke,” like the sports announcer, or “poonch-key.” The pronunciation and ingredients are dissected in Rocca’s report, from the Polish neighborhood of Hamtramck near Detroit. Watch it below while eating your paczki.
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