Why are doughnuts toroidal?
Upvote:13
An article from the Smithsonian magazine titled "The History of the Doughnut" also states that Captain Hanson Gregory invented the toroidal doughnut. The reason for the invention seems less clear. The article notes that:
Some cynical doughnut historians maintain that Captain Gregory did it to stint on ingredients, others that he thought the hole might make the whole easier to digest. Still others say that he gave the doughnut its shape when, needing to keep both hands on the wheel in a storm, he skewered one of his mom’s doughnuts on a spoke of his ship’s wheel.
In 1916, Gregory gave an interview to the Washington Post (printed on 26 March 1916) to give his side of the story. He said:
"Now in them days we used to cut the doughnuts into diamond shapes, and also into long strips, bent in half, and then twisted. I don’t think we called them doughnuts then–they was just 'fried cakes’ and 'twisters.’
"Well, sir, they used to fry all right around the edges, but when you had the edges done the insides was all raw dough. And the twisters used to sop up all the grease just where they bent, and they were tough on the digestion.”
...
"Well, I says to myself, 'Why wouldn’t a space inside solve the difficulty?’ I thought at first I’d take one of the strips and roll it around, then I got an inspiration, a great inspiration.
“I took the cover off the ship’s tin pepper box, and–I cut into the middle of that doughnut the first hole ever seen by mortal eyes!”
...
Well, sir, them doughnuts was the finest I ever tasted. No more indigestion–no more greasy sinkers–but just well-done, fried-through doughnuts.
"That cruise over, I went home to my old mother and father in Camden, ... I saw [my mother] making doughnuts in the kitchen ... I says to her: 'Let me make some doughnuts for you.’ She says all right, so I made her one or two and then showed her how.
"She then made several panfuls and sent them down to Rockland, just outside Camden. Everybody was delighted and they never made doughnuts any other way except the way I showed my mother.
As for the reasons for adding the hole, you can either take his word or not. It seems there is no definitive evidence beyond that (the arguments of "cynical doughnut historians" notwithstanding).
As pointed out by @DavidHammen in the comments, there are also other claims that rival that of Hanson Gregory. In her book Doughnut: A Global History, Heather Delancey Hunwick observes that:
"... [Mrs Abell's Skillful Housewife's Book] mentioned ring-shaped doughnuts in 1847, the same year as Captain Gregory's claim."
Furthermore, she goes on to suggest that:
"The earliest hole is better attributed to the Pensylvania Dutch fastnacht"
although these seem, from her description, to have been square or diamond shaped, rather than toroidal.
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