And now... for the dessert...
Doughnuts have a disputed history. One theory suggests they were invented in North America by Dutch settlers, and in the 19th century, doughnuts were sometimes referred to as one kind of oliekoek( a Dutch word literally meaning " oil cake "), a " sweetened cake fried in fat."
Hanson Gregory, an American, claimed to have invented the ringshaped doughnut in 1847 aboard a limetrading ship when he was 16 years old. Gregory was dissatisfied with the greasiness of doughnuts twisted into various shapes and with the raw center of regular doughnuts. He claimed to have punched a hole in the center of dough with the ship ' s tin pepper box, and to have later taught the technique to his mother. Smithsonian Magazine states that his mother, Elizabeth Gregory, " made a wicked deepfried dough that cleverly used her son ' s spice cargo of nutmeg and cinnamon, along with lemon rind," and " put hazelnuts or walnuts in the center, where the dough might not cook through ", and called the food ' doughnuts '.
According to anthropologist Paul R. Mullins, the first cookbook mentioning doughnuts was an 1803 English volume which included doughnuts in an appendix of American recipes. By the mid19th century, the doughnut looked and tasted like today ' s doughnut, and was viewed as a thoroughly American food.
" Mmmmmm … doughnuts." Homer Simpson