Variations on a Donut: Cambodian, Classic, and Modern
You say Doughnut, I say Donut by Richard Foss A friend moved from the South Bay to New Zealand but comes back periodically to visit family, and on every visit he indulges three food cravings: Mexican food on the way from the airport, and Southern barbecue shortly thereafter. And doughnuts. People fry dough everywhere, so why couldn’t he find a good doughnut in New Zealand? While people in other countries do submerge dough in boiling oil, nobody but Americans makes doughnuts quite like we do. First, there’s the hole, which was first punched by a Maine sea captain named Hansen Gregory in 1858. Baked dough rings go back to the Roman Empire, but nobody had tried that with fried dough. The hole makes the dough cook through evenly. Captain Gregory earned a plaque in Rockport, Maine for his achievement, but it hasn’t caught on in the rest of the world. Then there’s the variety of flavors. Portuguese have their malasadas, Danes their ebelskiver, Arabs luqaimat, and Indians gulab jamun. But most have a coating only of sugar or syrup, not the vast variety we enjoy. Add in the consistencies of different doughs, from the dense crumb of an old-fashioned buttermilk to the lightness of a…
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