Some call it Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fastnacht or Fat Tuesday.
For Belair Road baker Charles Hergenroeder today is Doughnut Tuesday.
And tomorrow, recognized by Christians as Ash Wednesday, is the day hot cross buns are popular.
"We keep the old traditions going and give our customers what they had when they were growing up," Mr. Hergenroeder said, standing in the flour-dusted kitchen of his Woodlea Bakery in the 4900 block of Belair Road in Northeast Baltimore.
The arrival of the 40-day Christian season of Lent is by custom a time of fasting, prayer, introspection and confession. But immediately before this period of quiet spirituality begins, there is time for one last feast, a chance to gobble a good doughnut without guilt.
Ancient European lore tells us that in the days before Lent, faithful burghers used up their supplies of flour and butter. Some made pancakes. Others turned out doughnuts as a way of reducing the temptation to indulge themselves with rich food during Lent. Some dressed up in elaborate costumes, ate and drank, then quieted down for the Lenten season.
Baltimore, with a large population of families descended from German and Polish settlers, has acquired a distinct taste for the sweet treats of the days before the fasting period starts. Ethnic bakeries herald these seasonal specialties with the pride shown by their loyal patrons.
"Our customers like the idea of hot cross buns and paczkis [a Polish jelly doughnut] and we try to make them as good as we possibly can," Mr. Hergenroeder said.
He breaks into a broad grin as he describes his recipe for hot cross buns -- a good solid dough mixed with candied fruits (cherries, pineapple and raisins), pecans and seasoned with a hint of rum. Each pan of rounded buns is criss-crossed with an icing latticework. When the individual buns are separated, each will have an iced cross on the top.
"Nobody can get excited about a dull hot cross bun," Mr. Hergenroeder said. "They were the sort of thing you ate during Lent and didn't think too much about. I've worked on this recipe until it's been improved and I think it's really good."
He sells his hot cross buns for 40 cents each, about the price that people pay for a few minutes' downtown parking. The same 40 cents will buy one of his Lenten doughnut specialties.
"Our overhead is low. We've been here for over 50 years. We can hold the price down," he said.
This year's Doughnut Tuesday inventory includes a variety that will never turn up on the shelves of a national franchise.
The Woodlea array includes the Polish paczkis (pronounced poonch-key), a type of jelly doughnut. This is a hearty confection sure to kill the hunger pangs of fasting. It also comes in a marshmallow-filled variety, another Woodlea specialty. The homemade marshmallow is cooked in the kettles in a workroom behind the shop.
Another varietal of Doughnut Tuesday is the fastnacht, a German-style variety made with potato flour. It too is a substantial exercise in bake shop engineering, nearly double the weight of a normal honey dip.
Mr. Hergenroeder also credits the loyalty of his 40 employees at this good-sized bakery with making it an institution in the Gardenville neighborhood. On Sunday mornings, as the Masses, Sunday schools and services of the local churches let out, it can be hard to get in the Woodlea's front door.
That front door is something of a Belair Road legend.
It opens at 6 a.m., seven days a week.
Customers are often lined up at that hour of pre-dawn darkness.
The bakery's founding couple, John and Dorothy Hergenroeder, still reside above the bake shop in an apartment where they raised their 12 children.
"I've been eating butter all my life and it hasn't affected me," said 86-year-old John Hergenroeder, who began baking more than 70 years ago.
The elder Hergenroeders have passed the business on to their son, the aforementioned Charles.
His wife Pat and their son, Charlie Jr., also work at the bakery.
Another Hergenroeder, Dolores Pomles, is at the shop several days a week.
That translates into three Hergenroeder generations who still live or work under the roof of the bakery shop-residence.
And a lot of well-fed customers, too.