The Donut is God's Perfect Food

OK - after much backlash on the donut post, (from a WHOPPING TWO COMMENTS!) I feel the need to justify the donut.

It's a well known fact that man found fire, invented the wheel, and then thought about combining the two. In this case, however, the "wheel" was made out of flour, sugar, and love, instead of stone. But as the Persians have found out (the hard way, I'm afraid,) there are less than copious records in existence. So we'll jump forward a bit.

2nd Century BC
The Roman scriblita, described by Cato in the 2nd Century BC, was probably a precursor of both fritters and doughnuts. Lumps of moist dough (leavened with sourdough) were spooned into hot fat, and allowed to stream in random shapes. In Latin, scriblita means "a kind of pastry."

7th or 8th Century
It is believed that the art of deep-frying came to Japan from China in the 7th or 8th century. Cooking oil was very expensive in those days, so Buddhist temples were about the only places serving deep-fried food. (Ever seen a skinny Buddhist? I think not!) Some of these delicacies were deep-fried sweet cakes. It was only in the 16th and 17th centuries, after European culture was introduced to Japan, that vegetable oil, so important for deep frying, was produced in Japan in large quantities. Tempura soon became popular throughout the country, bringing a new culinary sensation that sprang partly from European and Chinese cuisine.

1809
The earliest occurrence of the term 'dough nut' is in the "History of New York" by Washington Irving (1809) wherein he wrote in a comical description of Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (later New York) that "The table ...was sure to boast an enormous dish of balls (try to keep a straight face) of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called dough nuts, or oly koeks."

The rest is history. (as well as the previous, I guess...)

Don't diss the donut. Anything deep fried is good.