|
History
"The earliest occurrence of the word (doughnut) is in
the "History of New York" by Washington Irving (1809). He had to define the word, so we can assume that it was not
a widely known dish at the time, at least to his audience. And, interestingly, he defines doughnuts as "balls of sweetened
dough, fried in hog's fat". This suggests that doughnuts were not named after knots or nuts and bolts, but instead after nuts
like walnuts or pecans. They were balls of dough that, when fried to a deep golden brown, resembled nuts. Doughnuts only took
their torus shape to overcome a problem inherent in balls of dough - uncooked centers. Removing the centers ensured that the
doughnuts would be cooked throughout."
Regardless of who invented doughnuts and when, one thing
is certain: when doughnut making became mechanized the homemade shape, taste and texture, common to the home kitchens around
the world, was lost.
|
|
The History Timeline...
Prehistoric Native American Settlements
"...doughnuts in some form or other have been around so long that archaeologists
keep turning up fossilized bits of what look like doughnuts in the middens of prehistoric Native American settlements."
2nd Century BC
The Roman scriblita, described by Cato in the 2nd Century BC, was probably a precursor of both
fritters and doughnuts. Lumps of moist dough (leavened with sourdough) were spooned into hot fat, and allowed to stream in
random shapes. (In Latin, scriblita means "a kind of pastry.")
7th or 8th Century
It is believed that the art of deep-frying came to Japan
from China in the 7th or 8th century. Cooking oil was very expensive in those days, so Buddhist temples were about the only
places serving deep-fried food. Some of these delicacies were deep-fried sweet cakes. It was only in the 16th and 17th centuries,
after European culture was introduced to Japan, that vegetable oil, so important for deep frying, was produced in Japan in
large quantities. Tempura soon became popular throughout the country, bringing a new culinary sensation that sprang partly
from European and Chinese cuisine.
1445
Located about 900 miles off the Portuguese coast in the
Atlantic, the uninhabited islands of the Azores were encountered by Portuguese sailors in 1427 or 1431 and first colonized
in 1445.
1809
The earliest occurrence of the term 'dough nut' is in the "History of New
York" by Washington Irving (1809) wherein he wrote in a comical description of Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (later New
York) that "The table ...was sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called dough
nuts, or oly koeks."
1847
(As one story
goes....) The origin of the doughnut hole: Captain Hanson Gregory, a 19th-century Marine sea captain, was eating a doughnut
while sailing through a storm. Suddenly the ship rocked violently and threw him against the ship's wheel, impaling his cake
on one of its spokes. Seeing how well the spoke held his cake, Gregory began ordering all of his cakes with holes in them.
Internet source for this information
no longer exists.
(As another story goes....) In 1847, another New
England ship captain's enjoyed his mother's pastries. Made using a deep-fried spiced dough, Elizabeth Gregory put hazelnuts
or walnuts in the center, where the dough might not cook through - "doughnuts." Captain Hanson Gregory claimed credit for
originating the hole in the doughnut. Originally, he cut the hole using the top of a round tin pepper box. This made more
uniform frying possible with increased surface area, commemorated by a bronze plaque at his hometown, Rockport, Maine.
July 9, 1872
In 1872, New England sea captain, John F. Blondel of Thomaston, Maine,
patents the doughnut cutter.
1917
In August, 1917, fighting raged near Montiers, France, as soldiers huddled
in camp - hungry, weary and drenched by 36 consecutive days of rain. In a tent near the front lines, Salvation Army lassies
made donuts by filling a refuge pail with oil, made dough with left over flour and other ingredients on hand, and used a wine
bottle as a rolling pin. With a baking powder tin for a cutter end a camphor-ice suck tube for making the holes, donuts were
fried - seven at a time - in soldier's steel helmets on an 18-inch stove. (Later, a seven-pound shell fitted with a one-pound
shell was used to cut out the donut holes.)
Rain fell continuously, the water-soaked tent finally
Collapsed. However, the 100 donuts made that first day were an immediate success Soon, as many as 500 soldiers stood in muck
outside the resurrected tent waiting for the sweet taste of donuts and, before long, 9,000 donuts were being made around the
clock. The tent became the first 24-hour donut shop.
1920
The first doughnut machine did not come along until 1920, in New York City,
when Adolph Levitt, an enterprising refugee from czarist Russia, began selling fried doughnuts from his bakery. Hungry theater
crowds pushed him to make a gadget that churned out the tasty rings faster, and he did.
1937
First day of business for Krispy Kreme.
1945
In l945....American Red Cross personnel followed the invasion forces in
Europe and the Pacific. Clubmobile Service operated in the European Theater of Operations. Its courageous members often carried
coffee and doughnuts to soldiers for many miles over roads too rough for regular travel. Doughnuts became closely associated
with the American Red Cross: the organization purchased enough flour between l939 and l946 to make 1.6 billion of them. Red
Cross women served doughnuts at the rate of 400 per minute during the years l944-46.
|
