Fat Thursday

What it is

Fat Thursday belongs to the Christian calendar and sits within the Carnival season, which many communities keep as a farewell to rich food before Lent. The date moves each year. It comes five days before Shrove Tuesday, six days before Ash Wednesday and fifty-two days before Easter, so it usually falls in February or early March. Some countries treat it as a religious and cultural occasion rather than a formal church feast. What it means in practice is eating: sweets, cakes and dishes that people set aside for Lent are enjoyed in large amounts, at home, in cafés or with friends and relatives.

Doughnuts and pastries

In Poland the day is called tłusty czwartek, and people buy pastries from local bakeries. The best known are pączki, big deep-fried yeast doughnuts filled with fruit jam or rose petal jam and finished with sugar, icing or glaze. Angel wings, called faworki or chrusty, are eaten alongside them. Slovenia marks the day with heavy, hearty cooking. A favourite is krof, a doughnut filled with jam, often apricot, and dusted with powdered sugar. In both countries the eating is social: family visits, gatherings with neighbours and community events, sometimes with music.

Women's carnival

Germany's Rhineland calls the day Weiberfastnacht, an unofficial holiday. Work usually stops before noon, and celebrations begin at 11:11 in the morning. There are few parades, unlike Rosenmontag; instead people dress in costume and gather in pubs and on the streets. In the Bonn district of Beuel, local accounts date the custom to 1824, the year women there formed a carnival committee of their own. In Beuel the women's storming of the town hall, a symbolic act, is carried live on television. Across North Rhine Westphalia, women ritually take over town halls. They also cut off men's ties, seen as a badge of male status; the men keep the stumps and receive a Bützchen, a little kiss, in return.

Cologne and Groenstraat

In Cologne the name Weiberfastnacht has been in use since 1824. Women wear men's clothing that day, swapping roles and, as the custom puts it, being the man for a while. Just across the Dutch border, the village of Groenstraat had an earlier version of the day in the early nineteenth century. Households there bred goats and sold women's hair. On the Thursday before Carnival, men sold the hair to French buyers and then went to the pubs with the money. Wives, afraid it would be spent on drink, went looking for their husbands. That search later grew into the Ouwewijvenbal, the old women's ball, where women turned up in disguise and stood their ground with the men.

Meat and masquerades

Greece calls the day Tsiknopempti, part of Apókries, the Greek Carnival season. Its names are rendered as Smelly Thursday, Charred Thursday or Smoky Thursday, and the day is given over to grilled and roasted meat. Italy keeps giovedì grasso, which differs little from the Tuesday before Lent. A century ago in Venice it brought masquerades, a flower battle on the square, illuminations and the opening of a lottery, and the writer Marie Corelli set its noise and dancing in her 1886 novel Vendetta. Spain treats the day as a children's holiday, with a pastry around a boiled egg in Albacete, a sausage dish in Aragon and sweet fritters in Catalonia. Lebanese and Syrian Catholics know it as Drunkard's Thursday, or Khamis El Sakara, and serve dolmas, kibbe nayyeh and arak.

How Fat Thursday is kept

Christians who keep the day gather at home, in cafés, bakeries and pubs. In Poland and Slovenia families buy or make doughnuts and pastries and eat them together. In Greece the emphasis falls on grilled and roasted meat. Germans in the Rhineland stop work around noon, dress up and celebrate from 11:11 in pubs and streets, with women taking over town halls and snipping men's ties. Spain keeps it as a children's day with pastries. Lebanese and Syrian Catholics share meat dishes and arak. The day closes the season of plenty before Lent begins.

When and where

The date follows Easter, so it moves every year. Fat Thursday comes five days before Shrove Tuesday, six days before Ash Wednesday and fifty-two days before Easter, which places it in February or early March. In Greece it falls within Apókries, the Carnival weeks before Lent.

It is kept in Poland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain and Slovenia, with related customs among Catholics in Syria and Lebanon and among Dutch border communities. Poland's tłusty czwartek and the Rhineland's Weiberfastnacht are among the best known. In Greece it belongs to the Carnival season called Apókries, and in Italy the day is barely different from the Tuesday before Lent.

What Fat Thursday means

For those who keep it, the day is about abundance before restraint. Lent asks for weeks of fasting, and Fat Thursday is one of the last chances to enjoy what will soon be given up, whether that is meat, sugar or alcohol. The Rhineland customs add a second meaning: for a few hours women hold the power in public life, taking over town halls and cutting the ties that mark men's standing. In Greece the smoke of grilling meat marks the same turn in the year.

Questions people ask about Fat Thursday

See also

HalloweenAn annual observance on 31 October marking the eve of All Saints' Day, rooted in Christian tradition and Celtic heritageChristmas EveThe evening before Christmas, marked by church services, family meals, and gift preparations across Christian cultures.AdventA four-week Christian season of waiting and preparation for Christmas and the Second Coming.Mardi GrasA festive day of parades and rich foods marking the final celebration before the Christian fasting season of Lent begins

Good reading and sources

• Fat Thursday on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.