Donuts, donuts, get your hot glazed donuts - that is what I have been dreaming about ever since I took the dare and got in line at one of our most popular local donut haunts, the Donut King here in Mandeville. Now don’t get me wrong, I love donuts! My problem is I have no self-control when it comes to those light and airy fried dough treats from heaven. I work hard to keep the things that tempt me in my life at bay such as potato chips, especially Zapp’s Crawtators, (which, by the way, I can eat an entire family size bag in one sitting) and fresh loaves of French bread with real butter. However, the donut temptation was in check until they moved to their new location on Hwy. 59 and 1088. Did they have to put it so close and add a convenient drive thru?
After talking to many of my friends and doing an incredibly unscientific poll, I started to realize that donuts are an important part of many of their lives. Each of them has a favorite donut place, a favorite donut and a funny story to go along with their specific donut requirements.
One friend used to have her father come to the house every Saturday morning and pick up her two daughters, still in their pajamas, and take them to Daylight donuts. Another friend sends her husband out every Sunday to get exactly one dozen donuts and a dozen donut holes. This way each member of this family of six can have two regular-sized donuts and the kids can each have three donut holes. However, my favorite story is from my hairstylist who every Saturday morning wakes up, and with her jammies still on, heads out the door with iphone in one hand and a cold diet coke in the other to get in carline at the Donut King to pick up a couple dozen donuts for her house-full of teenagers. She said she uses this “quiet time” in line to catch up on facebook!
No matter what your story is with the doughnut, the history of them dates back centuries. Some historians even believe that the ancient Egyptians were eating fried cakes back in the 5th century BC. Archaeologists in prehistoric Native American settlements have discovered fossilized pieces of what appears to be doughnuts in the Southwestern United States. Even Cato in 2nd century BC Rome describes what some believe might be the earliest known relative to our modern fritter called the “scriblita”, which in Latin means “a kind of pastry”.
So, where did we get the modern doughnut? The first time the word “dough-nut “is referenced was when Washington Irving was describing the New Amsterdam (Manhattan) settlers in “History of New York” (1809). He wrote of the Dutch in New York City: “The table ...was sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks." Did he refer to them as doughnuts because they looked like large, fried walnuts to him?
Others believe that the origins of the word came from the Dutch Christmas specialty of knotting the dough, frying it and rolling it in sugar. No matter where the name came from, the history of the donut hole is far more colorful.
Legend has it that Elizabeth Gregory was a well know olykoek maker in New England, and in 1847 she sent her son Captain Hanson Crockett Gregory off to sea with a basket of her famous doughnuts and the recipe. The first version of what happened at sea is simply that the Captain did not like the way the center was never cooked all the way through and he ordered his cook to make them with center cut out using the ship’s tin pepperbox to cut the hole. The second and more “seaworthy” story says that the Captain was on deck when a violent storm arose and as he was trying to steer his ship, he had no place to put his doughnut, so without a second thought, he impaled it upon a spoke of the steering wheel, thus creating the doughnut hole!
Whichever story is true, the popularity of the modern donut was sped up, thanks in part, to the invention of the first donut machine in 1920 by a Russian immigrant named Adolph Levitt. By 1931 he was making over 25 million dollars a year selling his donut making machines!
In the 1940’s and 1950’s donut chains such as Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme were starting to pop up all over the United States and still exist today.
What is it about these delectable, sweet, deep fried pieces of dough lightly glazed with sugar that makes them so irresistible? Why is it that they have to be hot in order to elicit an almost primal moan from a place deep inside of me? A place where I know it is so good to be so bad!
Everyone I spoke with would defend with great honor his or her own donut place. It was their place to go once a week to be bad. Whether it is Mandeville Bake Shop, Not Just Donuts in Slidell, Butter Krisp in Covington, Tasty Pastry in Hammond or Donut King in Mandeville, everyone has his own special favorite place.
Therefore, if it is a chocolate glazed with sprinkles, powdered with Bavarian cream, jelly, cinnamon roll, fritter, or the simple glazed donut, remember that the occasional indulgence is good for the soul!