Fritter Frenzy

To the Editor, 

“Fritter Frenzy!” has arrived – that’s what we at Zion Lutheran Church call our months-long planning period.

A personal memory. In the olden days of 1988, after the birth of our first child, we made a decision to find a local faith community so our kids would get some theology and doctrine and Sunday School. The congregation was welcoming. And Dottie Czarnota was there. Dottie knew our family because she worked with my husband’s dad. Tom, my spouse, was raised in the Swedish Lutheran Church on Franklin Square in New Britain. And I was a Catholic kid at St. Ann on North Street in New Britain. Tom’s great-grandfather was a founding member of that church. Neither of us had ever tasted a fritter.

Dottie said, “Hey, make sure you show up to prep the apples for our fritters!” After a 10-minute explanation about this festival favorite, we were pleased to be asked and included. Babies and kids of all ages were also trained to either look adorable next to their parents in their baby carrier, or were our runners and peelers. 

In the way back past, we had those heavy duty mechanical devices where you shove an apple on the spit and lock it into attached blades and turn a handle. The peels drop off and the apple along with many others in your personal bucket are whisked away to the center of the church hall, where the men and teens or college kids who came home to help dumped them into a dicing machine. Procedures for machinery like fryers and mixers and hoppers for cinnamon sugar were created and employed at the booth we still erect yearly. We had one fryer; now we utilize four of them. 

So my kids grew up with that special memory. The entire purpose is the same as it was back in the 1980’s: giving back funds to help those in need. Some of those folks returned to us to help in the incredible process created over time by folks who guide the newbies; meanwhile we boomers think about how young we were. Now new volunteers will take over the hard work and another era begins. 

Stop by and make new friends while waiting in line! Contact our church office if you would like to volunteer and speak to the administrator. Meet the third, fourth, and fifth generation creating fritters full of ‘agape’, or love. Every time we bag fritters the founding members are with us in spirit. The booth is a very busy but a very joyful place. Zion fritters are once a year; the memories are for a lifetime. 

Jacki Carson Willametz, Zion Church member, Southington