I do not write a food blog, but yesterday I was considering my time as a history fair judge and moved, by odd avenues, to a recollection of a Book Fair volunteer’s experiences with cut-rate bakery, and finished up among my memories of the doughnut as I knew it in the middle of the now-fading century. Rather than foist all this off on an inoffensive therapist, I thought I might turn my observations into a blog.
In my boy days, doughnuts were encountered in three basic forms: National Commercial (packaged), local commercial (bakery), and home-made. These were three very different forms, and could not be mistaken for each other under any circumstances
Packaged doughnuts were primarily found as Hostess Donettes. I am aware there were full-sized doughnuts in boxes in those days, but these either did not come to my town until later or were just off my radar. These have been played with by corporate fiends since, but came in those days as Powdered Sugar, Chocolate Frosted, and Crunch (which were the soggiest.) Chocolate-covered were somehow messier than the powdered sugar ones, as the powdered sugar over time congealed into a light fragile shell which could be flaked off and eaten individually. As I grew older and discovered Efficiency, I found I could, with practice, pop a whole one into my mouth and consume it without gagging, eliminating most of the potential mess. (I also apply this technique to Oreos and mini-muffins, to the shock of bystanders who are just jealous.)
As for Bakery, national chains like Dunkin’ also did not come to my town. We, like everyone else, went to inhale the aroma and warmth at a family bakery. I cannot speak for others, but I ignored the wedding cakes which were probably their bread and butter (so to speak) and the cookies, and concentrated on the fluffier baked goods: long johns, bismarcks (jelly doughnuts), glazed doughnuts, and my father’s favorite, the chocolate doughnuts. We bought these on Saturday, when we picked out a loaf of French bread for Saturday night’s garlic bread (except to some people it was Vienna bread or…but that’s whole nother blog). Doughnuts and such were thus always a day old when consumed Sunday morning before studying Athelstan Spilhaus’s latest in the Sunday funnies. They were still special, though the glazing frequently crytallized into a clear shell. It came as a revelation when, in my twenties, I worked at a History Day Fair and ate a doughnut which had been cooked the same day I consumed it.
Homemade doughnuts were deep-fried. My mother produced these on rare occasions, for it involved a process, a procedure. Step One was children being banned from the kitchen. My mother had a thorough grasp of the essentials. We MIGHT, in the dining room, be trusted to help cut the doughnuts out of the dough, producing doughnuts, doughnut holes, and magic pointed odd bits between doughnuts. These were then, at a safe distance from offspring, dropped delicately into hot fat and fished out to be briefly drained, and then delivered hot to the offspring, who waited with paper bags filled with sugar or the cinnamon sugar blend usually reserved for cinnamon toast. (Memory fails me there.) A child’s job was to shake the bag energetically until doughnuts, holes, and alien anomalies were coated, whereupon they would be dumped into a towel-lined Dutch over with a ringing lid one had to LEARN how to lift without making a sound to sneak a snack later.
These were best if eaten when barely cool enough to tolerate. The alien shapes went first: they had those crispy spikes at the corners. Doughnut holes disappeared next (easiest to sneak out of the Dutch oven when no one was—you thought—watching.) The doughnuts might linger for a few days, perhaps even a week, becoming heavy and a bit damp. They were still remarkably good; they just took longer to eat and you risked observation. (“You’ll spoil your supper.” Maybe that was the inspiration to learn to pop all the evidence into my mouth at once.)
I COULD make these myself, I suppose. But, having deep fried a few things, I lack the faith: less in my ability than in my patience, as the fat must be hot enough and must reheat between batches and, anyway, what DID become if my mother’s cooking thermometer? And though I can still buy Donettes, the ability to sneak one into my mouth all at once seems less of an accomplishment. The doughnut places, once so trendy and all over everywhere in my neighborhood, were replaced by muffin shops, which were then replaced by coffee shops. Nowadays I limit myself to trying (and failing) to get to the store before all the apple fritters are gone.
This is simply a century of a different cruller.
Blogsy Babbles 