Suzy Jo Donuts Celebrates Fastnacht Day In Norristown Area

Fat Tuesday is Fastnacht Day, and local purveyor Suzy-Jo Donuts is providing the special treats at their locations around the Norristown area.

Suzy Jo Donuts has three locations, 49 East Fourth Street in Bridgeport, 205 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, and 301 North Lewis Road in Limerick.

Due to popular demand, the chain was accepting pre-orders for fastnachts, a form of doughnut, leading up to the big day.

Fastnacht Day is a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition that falls annually on the day before Ash Wednesday.

The web site of the Dutch Oven Bakery in Limerick says that fasnacht translates as "chamfering night," a reference to the chamfered (or beveled) edge of the traditionally rectangular fasnacht donuts.

Scholars disagree, both with the bakery's explanation and with each other. The most straightforward theory holds that "fasnacht" is a corruption of "fastnacht," or "the night before the fast (of Lent)."

Another explanation hearkens well back into the early Middle Ages, perhaps even before the areas of southwestern Germany that gave rise to fastnacht were exposed to Christianity. According to this idea, the fas in fasnacht is from an ancient Germanic word that means "to play tricks" or "to spin yarns."

With reporting from Patch correspondent David Powell