Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and Tracy. Before we get to the show today,
Speaker 1: we have to talk. We have a little business to
Speaker 1: talk about an upcoming live show, very exciting. We UH
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to be invited to participate in Great
Speaker 1: Conversations at Gettysburg, which is a series of programs that
Speaker 1: they have there that draw on the themes of Gettysburg.
Speaker 1: And that's going to take place on June at the
Speaker 1: rough House History Center and it's free. You can just
Speaker 1: go see us chat. There is cool programming going on
Speaker 1: all day long. That day, we are going to have
Speaker 1: our live podcast, which is called Fearless, Feisty and Unflagging
Speaker 1: the Women of Gettysburg at four pm. But if you're
Speaker 1: up for a day of interesting history, there is a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff to check out that day, so
Speaker 1: come and see us. And if you want more detail
Speaker 1: about that, you can come to our website and up
Speaker 1: at the top of the page at misson History dot
Speaker 1: com is the link that says live shows. Or you
Speaker 1: can just go to missed in history dot com slash
Speaker 1: shows and it's there too. Yeah, super handy. Uh So,
Speaker 1: now to the topic at hand, and I feel like
Speaker 1: I need to say that there was accidental good timing.
Speaker 1: I am not as good at planning head and looking
Speaker 1: at calendars and basing programming on it as Tracy is.
Speaker 1: I fly a little bit more by the seat of
Speaker 1: my pants, but entirely by accident. I started researching this
Speaker 1: topic because I knew, because of poor time management and
Speaker 1: me getting a little caught up with some other non
Speaker 1: history class work over the past week, that I was
Speaker 1: going to have to do some work over the weekend.
Speaker 1: And I thought was, how to do some work on
Speaker 1: the weekend, I'm gonna pick a topic I'm really into.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about donuts today. So but then I
Speaker 1: realized about halfway through it that when we publish, it
Speaker 1: is actually going to fall on National Donut Day, which
Speaker 1: is June five. Complete accidental good fortune unless I just
Speaker 1: have been heternalized the concept of National Donut Day to
Speaker 1: such a degree that my subconscious was like, you should
Speaker 1: do the episode now, right, So we're actually gonna talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about how National Donut Day started A
Speaker 1: little later on that was actually UM started in a
Speaker 1: more official capacity than maybe some of the other food
Speaker 1: based national days you may hear about UM. But first
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the early predecessors of donuts
Speaker 1: in history and kind of how donuts evolved over time.
Speaker 1: And then the last segment of the show, which is
Speaker 1: the longest for this one, is a nutty little battle
Speaker 1: about donut nomenclature that played out over the course of
Speaker 1: several decades in the pages of the New York Times,
Speaker 1: primarily in their Letters to the Editors section. So if
Speaker 1: you fancy a donut now, it's a good time to
Speaker 1: get one, because you're in for a lot of fried
Speaker 1: dough talk and you might be craving one by the end. Otherwise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I will say it does not surprise me at
Speaker 1: all that there was a debate about donut nomenclature that
Speaker 1: went on for decades, because I feel like the Internet
Speaker 1: has been talking about whether a hot dog is a
Speaker 1: sandwich for decades exactly the same idea. So we've talked
Speaker 1: about food histories on the podcast enough that it is
Speaker 1: not new knowledge for our regular listeners when we say
Speaker 1: that as far back as the Neolithic period, people were
Speaker 1: making does and cooking them on hot stones. We have
Speaker 1: discoveries along those lines that show up in our unearthed
Speaker 1: episodes pretty regularly. And that concept of a simple paste
Speaker 1: made of a ground grain flower mixed with a liquid
Speaker 1: and then fried up developed in some form or another
Speaker 1: in cultures all around the globe in human kinds early years.
Speaker 1: Instructions for cooking cake in boiling fat can be found
Speaker 1: in Egyptian tombs going back to the fifteenth century b c. E.
Speaker 1: Fried dough coated with honey was given to winners in
Speaker 1: the early Olympic Games as prizes. Marcus Porcius Cato the
Speaker 1: Elder included recipes for a number of dough based confections
Speaker 1: in his writing on Agriculture, which he wrote in the
Speaker 1: second century BC, and that writing includes one recipe that
Speaker 1: specifies frying balls of cheesy dough in hot oil, and
Speaker 1: another that describes spiraling a thinned dough in oil to
Speaker 1: create these coiled pastries that would then be coated with honey.
Speaker 1: The Chinese poem Summoning the Soul, written in the third
Speaker 1: century BC, also speaks of fried honey cakes, and the
Speaker 1: Arabic world has long loved and written down recipes for
Speaker 1: sweets that start with a fried dough base as well.
Speaker 1: There are fritters and similar delights mentioned all through the
Speaker 1: one thousand and one Night's Folk Tales. Evidence of a
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred BC fossilized acorn cake was discovered in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties, and what was unique about that
Speaker 1: discovery was that it was a round cake with a
Speaker 1: hole in the center, and the archaeologist who made that
Speaker 1: find et No, believed that the whole was likely there
Speaker 1: so that the cakes could be stored in suspension as
Speaker 1: a way to keep animals from eating them. But as
Speaker 1: that discovery became public news and media picked it up,
Speaker 1: the popular opinion became that Renault had clearly discovered an
Speaker 1: early donut. So it's a good time to talk about
Speaker 1: what a donut is by definition, and that is a
Speaker 1: harder question than you may imagine. The most common response
Speaker 1: is usually something along the lines of a deep fried
Speaker 1: dough ball, and that is one way to classify it.
Speaker 1: But there have also been waffle iron style doughnut makers
Speaker 1: and doughnut pans so that home donutmakers can pop them
Speaker 1: in the oven. Those are really more like cakes that
Speaker 1: are shaped like doughnuts than what most folks would consider
Speaker 1: a true donut. But then there are also cake doughnuts,
Speaker 1: which use making powder rather than yeast as their leavening agent.
Speaker 1: And while the donut in its circular shape with a
Speaker 1: hole in the middle is a very US centric treat,
Speaker 1: there have been as we said, fried dowed suites all
Speaker 1: over the world four centuries so. For example, in India,
Speaker 1: jube are a common treat. They're made by swirling battery
Speaker 1: in hot oil and then and they are soaked in
Speaker 1: warm syrup for several minutes. And desserts very similar to
Speaker 1: julet can be found throughout the Middle East and in
Speaker 1: some parts of Africa as well, and their lineage goes
Speaker 1: all the way back to the Middle Ages. Fritters of
Speaker 1: various kinds have been part of the sweets of Europe
Speaker 1: going back hundreds of years as well. Many of these
Speaker 1: are based on what's called a shoe paste, and that's
Speaker 1: a simple dough made with flower water, sometimes egg and
Speaker 1: possibly butter. There's not a leavening agent involved. That's how
Speaker 1: beign Yet's started out in France, but as they migrated
Speaker 1: to the southern United States, yeast entered the recipe and
Speaker 1: they took on the more pillowy characteristics that they're known
Speaker 1: for today. Yeah, it would have been less puffy and
Speaker 1: airy the way they are now in its original form.
Speaker 1: Another favorite fried dough, especially for Disney Park fans, is
Speaker 1: the turo. So uros are normally made also with a
Speaker 1: shoe paste dough, and while they're closely associated with Latin
Speaker 1: American culture, it's more likely that their roots are actually
Speaker 1: in China. So the Chinese version was savory, was assalted
Speaker 1: fried dough that Portuguese merchants discovered while they were traveling
Speaker 1: in Asia, and then when those merchants got home, they
Speaker 1: tried to replicate the Chinese food, but they opted to
Speaker 1: sweeten it up. And then the turo, named after Tura sheep,
Speaker 1: started to look more like what we know it today. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then that was picked up by the shepherds of
Speaker 1: Spain because that was a pretty easy food that they
Speaker 1: could make while they were out in the pastures for
Speaker 1: long periods of time and with minimal ingredients that were
Speaker 1: easy to carry with them. So from Spain, the curo
Speaker 1: spread to South America, where the stuffed versions became standard
Speaker 1: in both savory and sweet iterations. I will go on
Speaker 1: record as saying I love a savory turro like there's
Speaker 1: no tomorrow. Here in the US, donuts are abundance, and
Speaker 1: there is certainly a tradition of fried dough in Native
Speaker 1: American cultures. But the pastry that we normally call a
Speaker 1: doughnut and the whole local donut shop since has its
Speaker 1: roots in the Netherlands. When Dutch colonists made their way
Speaker 1: to the New World, especially New Amsterdam, the capital of
Speaker 1: the New Nettling Netherlands colony at the time, they brought
Speaker 1: with them a deep fried suite known as ali kix.
Speaker 1: This translates to oily cakes because of the way they
Speaker 1: were prepared. The US mythology around donuts grew from there.
Speaker 1: So Elizabeth Gregory is kind of a prominent figure in
Speaker 1: the story of donuts in the US, particularly in New England.
Speaker 1: So her son Hanson Gregory was a ship captain, and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth took advantage of the spices that he often carried,
Speaker 1: particularly cinnamon and nutmeg, and combined them with dough and
Speaker 1: lemon rind to deep fry a delicious pastry that also
Speaker 1: allegedly kept scurvy at bay. And her story is also
Speaker 1: one of the sources that people use as the advent
Speaker 1: of the word doughnut, as she put nuts in the
Speaker 1: center of the pastries as well, uh usually walnuts or
Speaker 1: hazel nuts, according to lore, but Hansen always claimed that
Speaker 1: he was the one who really revolutionized the donut by
Speaker 1: poking a hole in the center. Late in his life,
Speaker 1: he told the press that he had just used a
Speaker 1: round tin to cut a hole, but even so, exactly
Speaker 1: why he did as a matter of greater debate. He
Speaker 1: might have done it to stretch the ingredients a little
Speaker 1: bit further because his mother was making these treats for
Speaker 1: the crew as well, that way they could all have
Speaker 1: them on voyages. Or he may have done it so
Speaker 1: he could hang his pastry on one of the spokes
Speaker 1: of the ship's wheel to keep it handy while he
Speaker 1: was working. That is the story I heard in my childhood,
Speaker 1: and I was always like, but that doesn't make sense,
Speaker 1: because it's only gonna, yeah, only gonna stick there until
Speaker 1: you turn the wheel, and then if you take a
Speaker 1: bite out of it, it's not going to stay there anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess if you're on very steady seas and you
Speaker 1: want to maybe stack some for like your you're a
Speaker 1: long time standing at the wheel, maybe, but yeah, those
Speaker 1: you would have to take one off stuff it in
Speaker 1: your mouth otherwise than you're still standing there holding a
Speaker 1: sticky pastry. Um. Donuts became a commonly baked item in
Speaker 1: US kitchens in the second half of the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: but the initial surge in the donuts popularity in the
Speaker 1: US is actually pretty closely to World War One. So
Speaker 1: during the war, the Salvation Army had women volunteers baking
Speaker 1: donuts in huge quantities to deliver to US soldiers station
Speaker 1: in France, even delivering them directly two men on the
Speaker 1: front lines. So these young women that were carrying donuts
Speaker 1: out two soldiers were nicknamed dough girls or doe lasses,
Speaker 1: and the combination of young women and baked goods really
Speaker 1: did help morale and it left a lasting impression on
Speaker 1: the soldiers. So when the war ended, the men who
Speaker 1: came back sought donuts in their own neighborhood. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we will talk about how donuts went from this whole
Speaker 1: baked good to a whole industry, But before we do that,
Speaker 1: we will take a quick break and here from one
Speaker 1: of the sponsors that keeps us going. As demand for bakery,
Speaker 1: made donuts, grew one enterprising man at off, Levett changed everything.
Speaker 1: And Levitt's story doesn't exactly start out a massive success.
Speaker 1: He was a Russian born immigrant who moved with his
Speaker 1: parents to the U s and tend three at the
Speaker 1: age of eight, and he didn't get much formal schooling
Speaker 1: because his family was poor and he had to start
Speaker 1: working when he was tended to help keep things afloat.
Speaker 1: He taught himself as much as he could by reading
Speaker 1: books on his own, and as a young man he
Speaker 1: was pretty ambitious. He was really hard working. He opened
Speaker 1: up a series of businesses and worked in retail for
Speaker 1: a long time, but none of those efforts were really successful.
Speaker 1: When he was thirty seven, Lovett moved from Milwaukee to
Speaker 1: New York and started a bakery there. He started making
Speaker 1: donuts to accommodate this post war rise in their popularity,
Speaker 1: but he got some complaints from the adjacent businesses about
Speaker 1: the fumes from the deep briar. He brainstormed a machine
Speaker 1: that could do the job without making so many fumes,
Speaker 1: and eventually met an engineer on the train, got to
Speaker 1: talking and explained the idea to him. This machine was
Speaker 1: comprehensive in its design because it mixed the dough, formed
Speaker 1: it into ringlets drop them into oil, flipped them and
Speaker 1: then pulled them out of the oil and onto a
Speaker 1: conveyor belt. Finally they landed in a basket to be served. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's also to note that there's no point where the
Speaker 1: doughnut gets the whole punched in it. It's actually formed
Speaker 1: as a ring. That's something people maybe don't always know. Uh.
Speaker 1: It took a dozen tries at making this machine before
Speaker 1: it worked properly, but once it did in it was
Speaker 1: an instant hit. Levitt did not hide his donut maker
Speaker 1: in the back. He displayed it in the window and
Speaker 1: it drew onlookers who also came in to buy donuts
Speaker 1: and at off Lovett finally found success. He became known
Speaker 1: as the Donut King, and his bakery, the Mayflower Coffee Shop,
Speaker 1: was replicated throughout the country and under his company, the
Speaker 1: Donut Corporation of America, his doughnut machines, as well as
Speaker 1: donut mixes to use in them, were being shipped all
Speaker 1: over the world. Donut machines were on display at the
Speaker 1: Chicago World's Fair and they were lauded as an emblem
Speaker 1: of the century. They were inexpensive enough that most people
Speaker 1: could afford one, and they were made via automation, so
Speaker 1: they seemed really futuristic. Yeah, this is you know, depression times,
Speaker 1: so it was pretty exciting that you could get a
Speaker 1: really yummy treat for a few cents that made you
Speaker 1: feel like you were part of the country's progress into
Speaker 1: future technologies. And around this same time, a man named
Speaker 1: Joe Lebou, who was a French chef from New Orleans,
Speaker 1: sold his donut recipe, which was just handwritten out on
Speaker 1: a piece of paper and the name Crispy Kreme that
Speaker 1: he used for it, to a man named Ishmael Armstrong
Speaker 1: in Paduca, Kentucky, and Armstrong made donuts up based on
Speaker 1: this recipe in batches and he had his nephew sell
Speaker 1: those donuts door to door. But after mediocre sales in Paduca,
Speaker 1: Armstrong moved to Nashville to open a donut shop there,
Speaker 1: but soon he sold that business to his brother and
Speaker 1: he went back to Kentucky. In seven his nephew, Vernon
Speaker 1: Rudolph made donuts with Lebo's recipe and sold them in
Speaker 1: Winston Salem, North Carolina with friends in a grassroots effort
Speaker 1: to try to expand with the company business. Vernon and
Speaker 1: his friends have been traveling for a bit trying to
Speaker 1: find the right spot, and they were so broke that
Speaker 1: when they started up in North Carolina, they had to
Speaker 1: borrow the ingredients for their first batches of donuts. They
Speaker 1: sold mostly to grocers, but the scent of baked, freshly
Speaker 1: glazed donuts lured people to the bakery space that they rented,
Speaker 1: so he started selling directly to the customers. Within a decade,
Speaker 1: he had expanded to have donut shops in seven states
Speaker 1: and still totally attract people by the fact that it
Speaker 1: there is a Hot Donuts Now sign informing you that
Speaker 1: there are hot donuts now. Yes, even the Dalai Lama
Speaker 1: Eats Crispy Creez. The closest ones to me are in
Speaker 1: New York City at I think Union Station. But they're
Speaker 1: not like, there's not a donut friar. They're they're shipped
Speaker 1: in from somewhere, which is not really the same. Um.
Speaker 1: So when we were out on the West Coast for
Speaker 1: our tour last year, I was taking a car from
Speaker 1: the hotel that I had stayed into the ferry terminal
Speaker 1: and we passed a crispy cream with the hot Donuts
Speaker 1: now sign on, and I was almost like stop right here.
Speaker 1: Then I was afraid I would miss my ferry. And
Speaker 1: then I missed my ferry anyway, and I knew I
Speaker 1: had made it and you had of donuts. Yep, I
Speaker 1: had no donut. It's no good. In eight National Donut
Speaker 1: Day was born, and that was a fundraising initiative that
Speaker 1: was launched by the Salvation Army to harken back to
Speaker 1: the World War One efforts of the women volunteers who
Speaker 1: brought donuts to soldiers and also to remember their work,
Speaker 1: and the tradition of delivering donuts to men in combat
Speaker 1: continued in World War Two. Both the Salvation Army and
Speaker 1: the Red Cross ran wartime donut morale programs. In ninety four,
Speaker 1: Life Magazine ran a story on the donut morale effort
Speaker 1: with the tagline donuts will Win the War. While it
Speaker 1: undoubtedly helped some soldiers maintain a connection to home during
Speaker 1: tough times, it also was excellent for the donuts image
Speaker 1: around the world and back home, as this pastry came
Speaker 1: to be associated with the war effort, volunteerism, and cheer.
Speaker 1: They also talked about them on The Great British Bakeoff.
Speaker 1: These were the donut dollies. Yes, after they were on
Speaker 1: that show, people ask us to do a podcast about them.
Speaker 1: Krispy Kreme's Vernon Rudolph shipped out to fight in the war.
Speaker 1: When he came home, he went right back to making donuts.
Speaker 1: He developed a new donut machine that came to be
Speaker 1: known as the ring King, and he also made a
Speaker 1: ring King Junior that could be used in smaller retail spaces.
Speaker 1: The ring King Junior could turn out about sixty dozen
Speaker 1: donuts an hour, and modern donut machines can make eight
Speaker 1: hundred dozen donuts an hour. The Smithsonian has a ring
Speaker 1: King Junior, and the National Museum of American History. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it is not on display. It's part of
Speaker 1: the archives that are not out for visitors. But it's there,
Speaker 1: and there's a page about it on their website, which
Speaker 1: is going to be in our show notes. And as
Speaker 1: Rudolph was perfecting his machine to make all those dozens
Speaker 1: of donuts, another major player in the donut game opened
Speaker 1: its first shop. Bill Rosenberg. Duncan Donuts debuted in Quincy, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty and five years later, it started franchising
Speaker 1: and grew into the behemoth it is today. Duncan has
Speaker 1: stores in forty six countries worldwide. Uh and there are
Speaker 1: more than twelve thousand different locations. Yeah, well, I have
Speaker 1: to go to New York City to get a shipped
Speaker 1: in Crispykreme donut. If I want a donut from Duncan,
Speaker 1: I'm always like four feet from one. I the first
Speaker 1: time that my husband spent any substantial time in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: he was like, are people really afraid that they might
Speaker 1: have to walk a block without a donut? There really
Speaker 1: isn't Duncan on almost every other block, which is pretty funny. So,
Speaker 1: as we alluded to earlier, there's a whole other story
Speaker 1: about donuts and drama in the United States, and we
Speaker 1: will jump into that right after we pause for a
Speaker 1: quick sponsor break. So while I was researching this episode,
Speaker 1: I started looking at old digitized stories from the New
Speaker 1: York Times, which is one of my favorite things, and
Speaker 1: I stumbled across this interesting pattern. Starting in nineteen thirteen,
Speaker 1: there were full on debates happening in the letter section
Speaker 1: about whether cruelers could be considered donuts and which pastry
Speaker 1: was superior, and I honestly had no idea this was
Speaker 1: so hotly debated. As Tracy mentioned earlier, Yes, people will
Speaker 1: argue about anything forever, but I just did not know
Speaker 1: the level of fervor with the crullers versus donut situation
Speaker 1: had happened. Um. While I never managed to find the
Speaker 1: original article which The Times published that kicked off a
Speaker 1: lot of this debate, I did find one, dated December one.
Speaker 1: It was a letter from William L. Henry. And that
Speaker 1: letter to the editor is brief, and it reads quote
Speaker 1: one way of stating the question is is a donut
Speaker 1: ever a crueler? In other words, I defy you to
Speaker 1: find any agreement of authorities so that one may know
Speaker 1: whether these two terms define the shape or the materials
Speaker 1: out of which both delicacies are made. Perhaps your correspondence
Speaker 1: will rush to the defense of their own favorite nomenclature,
Speaker 1: and some standard usage may be discovered. To put my
Speaker 1: question another way, does the whole itself determine the baptismal name?
Speaker 1: Two days later, a letter from reader Casey put forth
Speaker 1: the following opinion quote an old New England housewife and
Speaker 1: the vintage of forty eight and a descendant of the
Speaker 1: mayflower feels able to speak authoritatively on the donut crullers question.
Speaker 1: The donut is born of leisure and forethought, the child
Speaker 1: of silence and slow time, being raised with yeast set
Speaker 1: in sponge overnight behind the kitchen stove, needed in the morning,
Speaker 1: and left to rise again before being fried. The crueler
Speaker 1: is a creature of impulse, quickly stirred together, raised with
Speaker 1: baking powder it or its equivalent, and fried upon the
Speaker 1: spur of the moment. The donut is a nobler nutriment
Speaker 1: and was the fair of the Pilgrims, But the swift
Speaker 1: and humble crueler had his place in this hurrying, progressive time.
Speaker 1: By the way, I did not find any evidence that
Speaker 1: Pilgrims eight donuts. No, I don't. I don't want a dog,
Speaker 1: Miss Casey with her knowledge, But I don't think the
Speaker 1: Pilgrims said, don't. I. I am just thinking about how
Speaker 1: my mother made donuts, which was to buy a can
Speaker 1: like a tube of biscuits from the refrigerator, section, shape
Speaker 1: it into a donut shape, and deep fry it in
Speaker 1: the fried Daddy fryar that we had in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: That sounds delicious. It was put powdered sugar on it.
Speaker 1: The powdered sugar on everything. I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: why that would even be a question um. This letter
Speaker 1: was quickly followed up by reader J. L. A. Fowler,
Speaker 1: who wrote, quote, crawler and doughnut are of the same
Speaker 1: family and have names to distinguish them. Only doughnut is
Speaker 1: a common name, but the word crawler is a dignified, refined,
Speaker 1: an appropriate name. A doughnut is a ball of dough,
Speaker 1: while a crawler is the same dough rolled thin cut
Speaker 1: in strips with a slit cut lengthwise in the center,
Speaker 1: with one end turned through the slit, producing the familiar hole.
Speaker 1: The debate seems to die down for a bit, and
Speaker 1: then there was a lengthy letter from nineteen thirty three
Speaker 1: titled donut holes in the Crawler. Reader VH. Pen responded
Speaker 1: to a suggestion that the size of the doughnut holes
Speaker 1: needs to be regulated. Pen's letter is full of punnury
Speaker 1: and word play, and it doesn't seem especially serious, but
Speaker 1: it's content outlines the fact that we should just ditch
Speaker 1: nuts altogether and switched to the far superior cralor, which
Speaker 1: will solve the problem. Automatically. Pen writes, quote, the cruler
Speaker 1: form of the pastry is really superior to the donut
Speaker 1: in many ways and taste, the difference is nil. The
Speaker 1: crawlers usually have a sugarcoating that few donuts possess. In design. However,
Speaker 1: the donuts form and function are traceable only to the
Speaker 1: prosaic life preserver, while the crawler, deriving its motif from
Speaker 1: the cute twisted columns of Spanish architecture, is authentic and artistic. Pensays,
Speaker 1: the best thing about crawlers is how they how good
Speaker 1: they are for dunking. I love the curlers are described
Speaker 1: as authentic and artistic. I absolutely love that. So that
Speaker 1: brings us to dunking, which we got to talk about
Speaker 1: for a minute, because dunking ones donut in coffee or
Speaker 1: tea or cocoa or milk or whatever tickles your fancy began,
Speaker 1: according to legend, by accident. Popular actress May Murray accidentally
Speaker 1: dropped her donut into her coffee at a New York restaurant,
Speaker 1: which restaurant is a matter of debate. Uh. And after
Speaker 1: fishing that pastry out, she took a bite and proclaimed
Speaker 1: it delightful. And as she was one of the most
Speaker 1: popular actresses of the nineteen twenties. This started a craze
Speaker 1: as everyone started dunking their donuts to emulate the starlet. So,
Speaker 1: talking about ramping up the donut crueler debate of the
Speaker 1: earlier early twentieth century, we also need to talk about
Speaker 1: the National Dunking Association. This was an organization started in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties by none other than Adolf Levitt's Donut
Speaker 1: Corporation of America, and it was a cute way to
Speaker 1: promote donuts and give customers a fun club to belong to.
Speaker 1: The group didn't seem to take itself especially seriously. It
Speaker 1: always named a comedian as its president. Red Skelton, Jimmy Durranty,
Speaker 1: and Johnny Carson all served as head of the organization
Speaker 1: at various times. The back of the membership card for
Speaker 1: the National Dunking Association read dunka donut and be merry,
Speaker 1: and it included the text of what it called the
Speaker 1: Optimists Creed, which read as you ramble on through life, brother,
Speaker 1: whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the donut
Speaker 1: and not upon the whole. There were also guidelines on
Speaker 1: the card for dunking which read quote, the National Dunking
Speaker 1: Association respectfully requests all members to observe the official dunking rules.
Speaker 1: Splashing is taboo. Any member caught getting his fingers wet
Speaker 1: will be subject to suspension. With that, we wish you
Speaker 1: happy dunking, and when you dunk, be sure you dunk.
Speaker 1: Donuts identified with the official Seal of Tested Quality for delightfully,
Speaker 1: delicious and winningly wholesome donuts enjoyed by millions of people.
Speaker 1: But those guidelines were just an abbreviation of the official
Speaker 1: Club Dunking Guide. So the longer form guide cautions amateurs
Speaker 1: about not getting too cocky because watching a professional dunker
Speaker 1: can make it look easy. Uh. And then it outlines
Speaker 1: an eight step guide to perfect dunking, which included, and
Speaker 1: this is again abbreviated, one tuck and napkin under your
Speaker 1: chin to break your donut in half. Three, pick up
Speaker 1: the donut carefully and keep the fingers that are not
Speaker 1: holding the donut up and out of the way. Four
Speaker 1: quote swish the donut rhythmically in the beverage with a
Speaker 1: free and easy movement of the entire arm. Five keep
Speaker 1: the donut immersed for exactly two point five seconds. Six,
Speaker 1: remove the donut from the liquid and let any excess
Speaker 1: liquid drip back into your cup. Seven quote swerve the
Speaker 1: donut in a graceful curve towards your mouth and close
Speaker 1: your teeth tenderly over the dunked portion. And eight repeat
Speaker 1: the above process until all the donuts on the table
Speaker 1: are simply fond memories. There are also some admonishments about
Speaker 1: being careful not to splash around, never trying to duck
Speaker 1: a whole donut, and never getting your fingers wet. That's
Speaker 1: all pretty hardcore about not making a mess for an
Speaker 1: activity that's alleged to have started when a starlet dropped
Speaker 1: a donut into her cut by accident. But still it's
Speaker 1: written in this very cavalier, jaunty style that has a
Speaker 1: little edge of wit. As duncan continued to be popular,
Speaker 1: the debate over donut versus crueler revived periodically. In May,
Speaker 1: then You Times ran a story about Major Helen Pervians,
Speaker 1: who was one of the women who had supplied donuts
Speaker 1: to soldiers in France during the First World War, and
Speaker 1: the subheader on that article read major Perviance warns mere
Speaker 1: crueler won't do but in the actual article. The only
Speaker 1: distinction that she really makes is that donuts have holes
Speaker 1: and cruelers do not, and she made very clear in
Speaker 1: her interview with the newspaper that the soldiers preferred donuts.
Speaker 1: In n one, the AP ran an article about the
Speaker 1: National Dunking Association. They had written to the Federal Security Administrator,
Speaker 1: Paul V. McNutt, who please step in and have the
Speaker 1: Food and Drag Administration make an authoritative ruling on the matter.
Speaker 1: McNutt was convinced that a dictionary definition could be used
Speaker 1: to settle the matter without the US government getting involved.
Speaker 1: There was an interesting outcome to this request. The National
Speaker 1: Dunkers Association asked McNutt to become an honorary member, and
Speaker 1: he accepted, but that meant that there was still debate
Speaker 1: because they had not gotten their government ling. So on
Speaker 1: October ninety one, The Times ran a letter written by
Speaker 1: Burton Evans, vice president of the National Dunking Association, And
Speaker 1: as an aside, Nevian's name comes up a lot, and
Speaker 1: he was actually a publicist that was hired to get
Speaker 1: donuts in the public eye, and he was clearly really
Speaker 1: good at that job. In his letter to the editor,
Speaker 1: Nevin's tries to present quote the dunker's side of the situation.
Speaker 1: He first states the association is a quote bona fide
Speaker 1: organization which is non commercial and non political. At that point,
Speaker 1: the group had more than a million members. He went
Speaker 1: on to say, quote our reason for seeking assistance from
Speaker 1: Administrator McNutt is that donuts are called crawlers, and many
Speaker 1: sections of the country, especially throughout Pennsylvania, by laws of
Speaker 1: our organization, call for the dunking of donuts and not
Speaker 1: crawlers or any other outlaw cakes. And naturally, many of
Speaker 1: our members have complained that they have had difficulty in
Speaker 1: practicing their dunking properly. I will forever look at a
Speaker 1: crawler and call it an outlaw CAKEE going for uh.
Speaker 1: He goes on to say that the whole in the
Speaker 1: donut is the key, and that quote crawlers, coffee cake,
Speaker 1: lady fingers, and other items are conducive to sloppy technique
Speaker 1: and do not enable one to get the real enjoyment
Speaker 1: out of the art of dunking. Nevin's concludes by saying
Speaker 1: that the matter will be brought up at the annual
Speaker 1: convention a few weeks later, and that they will then
Speaker 1: petition all dictionary publishers to help, and he ends with
Speaker 1: the quote, if that fails, we shall probably seek government aid.
Speaker 1: In December, the Times ran yet another donut or crueler article.
Speaker 1: This one discussed the many letters they had received on
Speaker 1: the matter, and also included a quote from Burton Evins,
Speaker 1: who was credited as the director of the National Dunking Association. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was actually the vice president. I'm not sure why
Speaker 1: they listed him as director, but there you go. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nevin's gave The Times the following quote on the matter, quote,
Speaker 1: The question of the difference between the donut and the
Speaker 1: crueler came up at our annual convention three years ago
Speaker 1: and was settled for all time, at least we thought so.
Speaker 1: They had in the end gone with shape. The crueler
Speaker 1: was an elongated, twisted piece of dough. The donut was
Speaker 1: a round cake with a hole in the middle, per
Speaker 1: their definition. And that same article, Ted Robinson of the
Speaker 1: Cleveland Plane Dealer discussed that what he did and didn't
Speaker 1: believe constituted a donut based on all the evidence, and
Speaker 1: then it said, quote, but usage is the law of
Speaker 1: language and will finally win over rule and precedent and correctness.
Speaker 1: Crawlers and fried cakes are called donuts by the population,
Speaker 1: so it is silly to hold out for purism. I
Speaker 1: am content to call them all donuts all that is,
Speaker 1: except those monstrosities with jelly inside them. Later that month,
Speaker 1: Kenneth Wiggins Porter wrote The Times on the matter, and
Speaker 1: first he mentioned that he had long been keeping up
Speaker 1: with this debate that played out in the paper over
Speaker 1: what is and isn't a donut, And then Porter shared
Speaker 1: his unique experience of what he and his family often
Speaker 1: made when he was growing up in Kansas, and how
Speaker 1: he did not grow up with the same nomenclature for
Speaker 1: the fried dough pastries so that the bakers of Manhattan
Speaker 1: seemed to. He was startled when he discovered that what
Speaker 1: they were calling colors were an item that his family
Speaker 1: had only ever called tangle bridges, and he closed with
Speaker 1: a question about whether anyone else had ever heard of
Speaker 1: such an alternate name, or if maybe it was just
Speaker 1: his family. I never found any evidence that anyone wrote
Speaker 1: back about tangle bridges. In any case, there does not
Speaker 1: seem to have been any official ruling on what is
Speaker 1: or isn't a donut. The National Dunkers Association disbanded at
Speaker 1: some point, but it's a little unclear when that happened.
Speaker 1: And there are certainly some regional differences and what people
Speaker 1: call various baked goods and various other things and various
Speaker 1: other words. And I'm like, everyone, just chill out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that will go on and on and on forever. I
Speaker 1: will tell a slightly embarrassing story of how it took
Speaker 1: me probably twelve years of marriage before I figured out
Speaker 1: what Brian meant when he said a chocolate donut was
Speaker 1: like a regular doughnut with chocolate icing, and not a
Speaker 1: chocolate cake doughnuts. And it came to be this thing
Speaker 1: where like our friends, we would walk into a donut
Speaker 1: shop and they would all get tense because they knew
Speaker 1: I would always get Brian the wrong donut. Mess it up.
Speaker 1: It's fine, we've figured it out now. But for the record,
Speaker 1: in more modern discussion of the matter, crawlers, it is
Speaker 1: pointed out, can actually exist in two different forms. One
Speaker 1: is a hand twisted cake doughnut, but there are also
Speaker 1: curlors made with shoe paste, like we mentioned earlier in
Speaker 1: the episode, those are unleavened, and in the book Doughnut
Speaker 1: a Global History, which was one of my sources for
Speaker 1: this author Heather de Lancey Hunwick is very clear that
Speaker 1: the shoe paste crawlors do not count as donuts, but
Speaker 1: the twisted cake ones do. Donut or e h, do
Speaker 1: you have some listener mail? I do. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: from our listener Megan, or perhaps she pronounces it Megan.
Speaker 1: Either way, I'm not sure, she writes. Dear Tracy and Hanley,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for the wonderful show. You pretty
Speaker 1: My best friend introduced me to the concept of podcast
Speaker 1: when I was complaining about how boring driving to all
Speaker 1: my residency interviews in my fourth year of medical school. Was.
Speaker 1: Since then, nearly two years ago, you guys have kept
Speaker 1: me company during road trips, moves, chores, and my constant
Speaker 1: knitting projects, even on people and subjects I've heard about before,
Speaker 1: like dr Apgar. I always learned something new, of course
Speaker 1: I I love to share these cool tidbits I learned
Speaker 1: from you, to the point where one of my co
Speaker 1: workers playfully bellowed at me, how do you know stuff
Speaker 1: about everything? Of course I don't, but I do love
Speaker 1: constantly learning. More so, keep up the good work. Um
Speaker 1: When I'm always sort of in awe by people who
Speaker 1: gets through medical school and go on to have careers
Speaker 1: in medicine. So kudos Megan, and thank you for the
Speaker 1: lovely postcard, which is a really beautiful piece of Japanese
Speaker 1: art and we appreciate it. Um. It is from the
Speaker 1: Honolulu Museum of Art from the Edo period and it's
Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful, So thank you, thank you for that. If
Speaker 1: you would like to write to us, you can do
Speaker 1: so at History podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us everywhere on social media as
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Speaker 1: episode of the show that has ever existed. Uh, you
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Speaker 1: Stuffy Missed in History Class is a production of I
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