[Sca-cooks] PPC 84 / doughnuts

Huette von Ahrens ahrenshav at yahoo.com
Fri Feb 8 03:23:24 PST 2008


Hi!

I received my issue # 84 of PPC on Tuesday.  I have had great respect for the editors of PPC
up until now.  Sigh.  In this issue is a 23 page article entitled "The Origins and the Early
History of the Doughnut" by Brian Brivati.  

Seeing this title, I was very excited and started to read the article almost immediately upon
opening up the envelope.  He starts nicely, but then proceeds to ramble through North America
and practically stating that the Native American fry bread was an ancestor to doughnuts.  He then
rambles off to Ancient Egypt and talks about the origins of bread and yeast and throws in
apocryphal stories, along with quotations from the Bible, both old and new testaments.  He then
rambles to Ancient Greece and Athenaeus' "The Deiphnosophists" stating that the 'krimnitas' or
'chondrinos' of Thessaly were the ancient ancestor of doughnuts.  He then wanders to Cato and 'Of
Agriculture' and stated that the clearest ancestor of the doughnut is either "placenta" or
"globi".  From there he wanders to early medieval England, talks about fairs and festivals and
fast food, eventually making a statement that "payne puff", "pain pendu" and "mistembec" were
ancestors of doughnuts.  He wanders more and eventually states that the doughnut might have been
brought over on the Mayflower.  He briefly mentions the Dutch 'olie-koeck' [which he mis-spells as
'olyoek'].  Not
once does he mention 'krapfen'.  He quotes from various historic texts, but he does not document
[at least in my opinion] any of his theories.  If you can't tell by now, I am extremely
disappointed in this article.

So, who else has read this article?  What is your opinion of it?  Am I right in thinking it is a
poorly written and researched article?  Or am I totally off base?

Huette

My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;   King Henry VI, part I: I, v 
http://www.twoheartsentwinedpottery.com/


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