In The U.S. Alone, More Than 10 Billion Doughnuts Are Made Every Year

National Cream-Filled Donut Day on September 14th recognizes one of our favorite foods.

New Amsterdam, of course, is New York City! The Settlers from Denmark had a cake known rather unappetizing as “oil cake”, or “olykoek”. In 1803 a cookbook was published that contained donuts, and it didn’t take long for it to become the delicious treat we know today. The ring shape that we all know and love came into being when Hanson Gregory, working on a lime-trading ship, punched a hole in the traditionally dense donut (They were braided or simply a round small loaf at the time, leaving the center doughy and the exterior greasy) and fried it. The light flavor and fluffy texture of the cooked dough were exactly what he was looking for and afterward taught it to his mother. Being a clever lass, Elizabeth Gregory made a delightfully savory donut with cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon rind, and then filled the center with a mixture of hazelnuts or walnuts to replace the missing dough. While the person who decided that crème would make a delightful filling isn’t recorded, we do know that it all started here with Elizabeth Gregory and her idea of filling donuts. At their 27 locations, LaMar’s Donuts produces 344,700 donuts per week, which is 17.9 million donuts per year. A Ray’s Original Glazed Donut has only 220 calories, while a bagel and cream cheese averages 450 calories. Per capita, Canada has more donuts shops than any other country. Doughnuts vs. Donuts? “Doughnut” is actually proper, but “donut” is acceptable. If you look in older dictionaries, you’ll only find “doughnut.” However, the Merriam-Webster dictionary now lists “donut” as a variant of “doughnut.” National Doughnut Day was officially established in 1938 by the Chicago Salvation Army to raise much-needed funds during the Great Depression. In the U.S. alone, more than 10 billion doughnuts are made every year. Adolph Levitt invented the first doughnut machine in 1920.

The US doughnut industry is worth 3.6 billion dollars. The history of the doughnut goes back centuries, long before the discovery of the New World. In ancient Rome and Greece, cooks would fry strips of pastry dough and coat them with honey or fish sauce. The first cookbook to mention donuts was an 1803 English cookbook with an appendix of American recipes Doughnut vs. Donut: The Official Dictionary Spelling of the word in question—if you’re into that sort of thing—is “doughnut.” The expedited, simplified, Americanized spelling of “donut,” as Grammarist tells us, has been around since at least the late 19th century. It didn’t catch on, though, until late in the 20th century. At the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair—which was billed as “A Century of Progress”—doughnuts were given the lofty title of “Hit Food of the Century of Progess.” Because they were fresh and the automated machines made them quickly, they were cheap and became “a staple of the working class” during the Depression, according to Sally Levitt Steinberg, whose grandfather invented the doughnut machine. Bostonians really love their doughnuts: The city has one doughnut shop for every 2480 people according to AdWeek. Back in the 1950s, police officers on the graveyard shift would stop by doughnut shops—which were among the few establishments open late—to do paperwork and have a snack. Eventually a reciprocal relationship developed: Doughnut shop owners welcomed the protection of police officers, and police officers liked having a place to chow down late at night, so the association stuck around. Ten people in the United States have the last name Doughnut or Donut. Ninety-five people have the name Longjohn (the name of a long doughnut). Twelve people have the name Bearclaw, 498 people have the name Sprinkles, 470 people in the U.S. have the name Fritter, and 1,634 have the name Sugar. Some unique doughnut flavors/names include Wasabi Cheese, Champagne, Poi (a common Hawaiian starch paste from the taro root), Southern Spice (made with Southern spices, green chilies, and thyme), Rosemary Olive Oil, Bubble Gum, Chicken & Waffle, and Psycho Psush If a person added a doughnut a day to their regular diet, they would gain about one extra pound every 10 days. In the 1934 movie It Happened One Night, Clark Gable gave birth to the trend of dunking donuts in milk when he showed a fellow actor the “right way to do it.” During the 1940s, stars such as Johnny Carson, Pearl Buck, Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, and Martha Graham were members of the National Dunking Association for doughnuts. The association even provided membership cards. The author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Washington Irving was one of the first to use the word “doughnut.” His 1809 History of New York describes “balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called doughnuts.” Today, the “nuts” of fried dough are called “doughnut holes.” Jews have embraced sufganiyot, jelly-filled donuts, as ceremonial food of Hanukkah. Their rationale is that sufganiyot are cooked in hot oil and thus pay homage to the second century B.C. rededication of the Holy Temple, during which the oil in the temple lamp lasted eight nights instead of the expected one. Admiral Richard E. Byrd took 100 barrels of donut flour (enough for two years) on one of his South Pole expeditions. The French used to call their doughnuts Pet de Nonne, which means “Nun’s Farts.” Researchers have noted that the size of the hole in a doughnut correlates with the quality of the economy. Specifically, the worse the economy, the bigger the doughnut hole.

Some of the top cream-filled donuts we love (in no particular order) are: Boston Cream Bavarian Cream Chocolate Cream Lemon Cream Custard Caramel Cream Strawberry Cream Vanilla Cream Peanut butter cream Holland Cream Fluffernutter Cream Orange Vanilla Cream Nutella Cream Marshmallow Cream Maple Cream Espresso Cream Coconut Cream

Sources:

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