Okay, Bob, if you can bring up fastnachts, I'm obliged to mention paczki (roughly pronounced "poonch-key"). These are the Polish equivalent of fastnacht, only they usually are filled. Raspberry is traditional, but you'll also find strawberry, custard, apple, apricot, lemon, prune, sometimes bluberry. Also originally made only on Shrove Tuesday, now known in these parts as Paczki Day. (Marketers, who know a good thing when they see it, now start advertising and selling paczki a week or so before Paczki Day.)
Same explanation about using up all the goodies before the start of Lent, so there may be some truth to it. The recipe is, in fact, different from that used to make your run-of-the-mill jelly donut - richer dough, more and richer fillings.
Paczki Day started in Hamtramck, the Polish enclave, city-within-the-city, in Detroit, and has become quite a big local event every year. Although the best paczki (singular paczyk "poon-chik") are made by the ethnic bakeries, even the big supermarket chains have gotten into the act and produce probably millions. Ah, tradition!
