National Do(ugh)nut Week

I heard someone on the radio proclaiming that this is National Doughnut Week. As promoted by Messrs Krispy & Kreme, I muttered to myself darkly. Bizarrely, it transpires that there is such an event, which has the worthy object of raising money for The Children's Trust. More details here. But please don't make the elementary mistake of confusing that with National Donut Day, which falls on the first Friday of June each year. As you can divine from the spelling, that is a transatlantic affair. I've written in the past about so called Food Days and initially I gave the matter little thought.

Then it occurred to me to enquire some more. Why is a doughnut so called? Where did they come from? My first port of call for such food matters is often the culinary bible that is Larousse Gastronomique. A traditional patisserie of  Quebec. My, aren't the French a chauvinist lot? Have I got news for you, LG. The world had doughnuts while the Algonquin and Cree Indians were roaming freely and happily in that area with never a Frenchman in sight.

You won't be surprised to learn that the Romans had the first recorded example. Cato the Elder describes a deep fried doughball with cheese, honey and poppy seeds. There is a German reference from the 15th century; however, it's not entirely clear what type of dough was being used. As cooks we have to be aware of the differences. An early version of fried dough which is still popular today is the Spanish churro. That, however, is made with choux pastry dough, which is also used for the French beignet. The doughnut as we know it today is most commonly made with sweetened, leavened flour dough.

The spread of the present day version can be attributed to the Dutch who made something they called  olykoek, (literally oily cake) and introduced it to New Amsterdam, later to be New York, in the 18th century. But it would appear that we Brits weren't too far behind. From Hertfordshire in 1750 came a gloriously entitled book, How to make Hertfordshire Cakes, Nuts and Pincushions. There is also a contemporary reference to dow nuts.

Why a nut? it's from an old word meaning small rounded cake or biscuit. Think ginger nuts. The early versions would have been in the form of balls, not the rings which are more common now. The latter were apparently devised by an American ship's cook. Noticing that they often came out raw in the centre he devised the simple but ingenious idea of cutting a hole in the middle. Commerce hates waste. As the ring shape took off, doughnut sellers took to selling doughnut holes, bite sized pieces made from the offcuts.

A pair of yumyums

Scotland, I believe, is the only country where the traditionally shaped ones are referred to as doughrings, to avoid confusion with the plump versions stuffed with jam or apple or whatever. But before you accuse us of being dour and literal, note that our bakers also produce something called a yumyum, a twist of deep fried dough smeared with some sugar icing. I can't imagine any self respecting grownup going into a shop and asking for a yumyum.

Most countries have their own variations, and, of course, regional names. These can be a pitfall for the unwary. Arriving in West Germany in 1963 and wishing to ingratiate himself, US President John F Kennedy proclaimed, Ich bin ein Berliner. Unfortunately that translated as, I am a doughnut.

With the exception of a short time in my life, these are not confections which have appealed much. That exception was when I was studying for my University finals. Starting work at 6, by 10 I was in need of sustenance. By chance I discovered that the nearest baker took his doughrings out of the fryer at 9.50. By 10 the sugar was melting on the surface, and by 10.10 I had had a sugar hit to keep me going.

Overall, the consumption figures are staggering, even if you take Homer Simpson out of the equation. Krispy Kreme produce 5 million per day. There seem to be no reliable figures for the US. Estimates vary between 1 and 10 billion per annum. But going back to the Larousse Gastronomique, one thing does seem to be clear. The world's biggest doughnut munchers, per capita, are ..... the Canadians.