I’m not on a formal diet of any sort but I have run out of patience with several of the extra pounds that aging has gifted me so I’m “being careful” about what I eat. That’s about as much fun as unclogging the drain in the bathtub. However, it is just as essential. Blah.
Yesterday I slid off the horse, but I swear it wasn’t my fault. At three separate times during that one day I came face-to-face with the beguiling smell of fresh doughnuts! How is that fair?
Now, I have never been a big fan of the doughnut. I know that is an un-Canadian thing to say, but it’s the truth. Canada, as you may or may not know, is famous for its love of doughnuts. We have more doughnut shops per capita than does any other country in the world. That our most prolific franchise of doughnuts was opened by a professional hockey player, helps.
Doughnut shops today are much different than the ones that I grew up in. Those ones only sold a handful of flavours and variations for the doughnuts that were made on site each day. Alongside the tables and chairs for the shop’s patrons, there was usually a coffee/serving counter, with stools attached to the floor, and the doughnuts were displayed on open racks along the wall behind that. It was a chummy place to sit and wile away time by drinking coffee and eating high-fat treats. Back then, one was able to smoke in every public place other than church or a nursery school, so those counters were often lined with people blowing smoke right at the racks of doughnuts for sale not 7 feet away. It was a long time before I would realize that doughnuts did not need to come with undertones of Export A’s.
My troublesome relationship with doughnuts began during those early days. Doughnuts always left me feeling like I was carrying a dead weight in my stomach for several hours afterwards. That attitude was challenging because in my house, doughnuts were seen as a treat or a splurge or a reward. Some had icing or were filled with cream, for crying out loud! After a school concert or play, or to celebrate someone’s milestone achievement, the whole family would treat ourselves to either a doughnut of our choice or we would veer across the road to the hamburger joint for a round of milkshakes. (You can see where I learned my hard-partying ways.)
Doughnuts, in their deep-fried dough form, have a long history that was first documented by Cato the Elder in his descriptions of Roman life during the first century, or so, BC. His recipe saw cheese, poppy seeds, and honey added to dough and then deep-fried. No sprinkles like the coffee chasers that we have these days, but clearly good enough to write down the ingredients for future reference.
All cultures seem to have some sort of sweet (ish) fried dough treat and it has been called by all manner of names as time has sauntered along. It’s a pretty simple food and most cultures’ recipes have revolved around the same few ingredients and methods, regardless of what they called it. Immigrants packed up their recipe when they headed for new countries and incorporated their own traditions into their new environments. Such was the case with Dutch immigrants when they transplanted themselves to North America in the early 1700s. Their recipe was very close to the doughnut that we know today, although it was in a round or rectangular bun shape.
The idea to start making them in a ring formation, or with a hole punched out of the middle, is said to have come from a 16-year-old guy named Hanson Gregory who, in 1847, was apparently working on a lime trading ship (the mineral not the fruit). The actual details are a bit sketchy, but he is said to have been disgruntled that his mother’s doughnuts were always cooked around the outside but had a raw patch in the middle which never seemed to get fried. Those of you who have deep-fried at home will know this conundrum. Hanson thought that if he could cut a hole in a doughnut before deep-frying it, the rest would cook easily and evenly. He got the ship’s cook to try out his idea and it seemed to work, so he went home and explained the whole thing to his mother who then changed her doughnut-making methodology immediately to suit him (there’s a picky eater in every family). The idea was quick to catch on.
In 1964, “Tim Horton’s Donuts” was invented and all of polite Canadian society hurrahed wholeheartedly, as we do. Tim Hortons (the apostrophe was dropped in the 90s) was jettisoned into prominence through very clever business moves (mostly on the part of Mr Horton’s various early partnerships) and for two very basic reasons. The first one is that Canadians happily embraced the humble doughnut with our characteristic loyalty and unbridled enthusiasm, and we have never let our passion for them grow cold. And the second reason is that Timmies’ coffee has been printed into the DNA of every Canadian born since that opening day in Hamilton Ontario when the first doughnut (“donut” to Tim) was ordered and the now-famous fragmented question was posed, “double-double?”.
This brings me to yesterday. That sweet smell of cake/vanilla/icing that seems to waft along the front of any doughnut store (the back smells like used cooking oil), weaving a part of itself into each passing soul and whispering its sweet doughnut lies, followed me from the gym to the grocery store and then pounced on me again when I was in a weakened state on West 4th. Before I knew it I had slipped into a fancy doughnut ’boutique’ next to the clothing store where I had just undertaken some monetarily-responsible shopping. In a flash it was all over and I was sitting in front of an empty mug and a plate scattered with the remaining sprinkles from an impossibly tasty doughnut. It went just that fast!
The lesson here is that if it can happen to me, it can happen to you. Today, unsuspecting reader, is National Donut Day (June 5th). Choose your route wisely and make your own choices.
