Snack Bar
Donuts!
Like many of our best-loved foods, the history of the donut (or doughnut) is up for debate.
Our favourite story about the origin of the donut involves some dough, a vat of oil and a cow. It goes like this: In the 1700s some Dutch immigrants living in Manhattan, New York (which was then known as New Amsterdam), had a clumsy cow. That cow happened to kick over a vat of boiling oil (we hope he wasn’t hurt) and the oil spilled all over some pastry mix. Instead of ruining the pastry, the oil turned it into delicious deep-fried bits of goodness that the Dutch immigrants called olykeoks — which translates to “oily cakes.”
But there is another version of the story that says olykeoks were invented by the Dutch in Holland and were merely transported to North America by the Puritans (strict, religious Protestants) when they moved to the
New World (America).
But how did the donut get its unique shape? The donut hole is usually credited to Captain Gregory, a sea captain from New England, and his mother Elizabeth.
In the late 1800s, Mrs. Gregory is said to have used the nutmeg, cinnamon and lemon rind obtained from her son’s expeditions to make a dough. But the dough didn’t cook very well in the centre, so she put a nut there. Rumour is her son didn’t like the nut, so pulled it out creating a hole.
Whether that story is accurate or not, the truth is, the hole surely has something to do with the fact that the dough in the centre takes longer to cook so would come out underdone if it wasn’t removed.
In 1920, a New Yorker named Adolph Levitt invented a donut-making machine. That’s when the yummy desserts really became popular, since they could finally be mass-produced and enjoyed by millions of people.
Donut Diversions
• Canadians eat more donuts per capita than any other nationality.
• Our popular Tim Horton’s donut stores are named after the famous hockey player who started the chain. (Horton was a defenseman for the Leafs, Rangers, Penguins and Sabres.)
• In Germany, donuts are called Berliners, therefore President John F. Kennedy’s famous phrase “Ich bin ein Berliner,” which he meant to mean “I am a citizen of Berlin,” also translates to “I am a donut.”
• In Israel, donuts are called sufganyot and are eaten at Chanukah because they are fried in oil and oil is crucial to the story of Chanukah.
• Although the round donut with the hole is the most popular, other forms include the cruller (which is rectangular or twisted), the jelly donut (which has no hole but is filled with jelly) and the beaver tail, which is, ummm, shaped like a beaver tale and particularly popular in Canada.