For a few moments tomorrow, forget about that dismal stock market portfolio, the high grocery prices, or how to make that next car or mortgage payment by helping your fellow Pennsylvanians celebrate a food that has remained close to our culinary hearts since we were toddlers - the pierogy.

Gov. Tom Corbett has declared tomorrow to be Pierogy Day in the Keystone State. The recognition is much-deserved.Nowhere is the pierogy loved and appreciated more than in the coal regions. According to Mrs. T's Pierogies, our state purchases more pierogies per capita than any other and Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre areas all rank among their top 10 markets in the U.S.The origins of this traditional favorite is difficult to trace. The name pierogi has some Slavic origins, with the root "pir" meaning festivity. In other languages the word also means pie.The pierogy first arrived in this country at the beginning of the 20th century from Eastern Europe. No one enjoys the food more than Poles and at a Pierogy Festival in Kraków four years ago, 30,000 of the dumplings were consumed daily. Poles traditionally serve two types of pierogy for Christmas Eve supper, a custom that my parents kept.Traditional fillings for Polish pierogy are mashed potatoes mixed with farmer's cheese and fried onions but they can also be served with ground meat, mushrooms, cabbage and fruits.In the U.S. during the 1940s, the pierogy became a regular treat at church fundraisers in ethnic neighborhoods in the Northeast. For years, the mother of Ted Twardzik, Sr., who founded Mrs. T's Pierogies, and her friends, would gather around the kitchen table and make pierogies for their church.In the early 1950s, Ted saw an opportunity to expand this church custom into a business and on October 8, 1952, he produced the company's very first pierogy samples and delivered them to a local grocery store in Shenandoah. Today, Mrs. T's (named for Ted's mother) is still a family-owned company and is the largest producer of frozen pierogies in the U.S., having sold over half a billion in just 2010. That amount of pierogies:• Could blanket both the Steelers' and Eagles' football fields 444 times (including end zones).• Stacked on top of each other would equal the height of 33,333 Empire State Buildings.• Laid end to end, is the same distance as traveling from the North Pole to the South Pole and back again!• Is enough to give every citizen in the top 10 pierogy-consuming cities one full box of 12 pierogies!The nutrition-minded among us might like to know that the pierogy even enjoyed some popularity as a sports food. Paula Newby-Fraser adopted the pierogie as her food of choice for the biking portion of Hawaii's Ironman Triathlon and following that endorsement, Mrs. T's sponsored triathlons and some professional triathletes.Sports nutritionist Nancy Clark, M.S., R.D. even offered her expert opinion on the subject, calling pierogies an excellent sports food because they are rich in carbs and fuel the muscles. She said they are also easily digested, taste delicious, and are a nice change from the usual pasta meal. She notes that they are also portable, and can be eaten during long bike rides and hikes.It's only my theory and it might have a lot to do with the ethnic-family connection also, but when people get together to dine and there's a plate of pierogies on the table, everyone seems to be in a better mood. If that's true, then we need to ship some mood-lightening triathlon food over to our politicians in Washington to help them spur this economy.By Jim Zbickjzbick@tnoline.com