Debunkin’ Donuts

There were crullers and beignets aplenty in New England circa 1803, but Elizabeth Gregory, of Portland, Maine, added nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon rind to her batter and placed a nut in the center of each one. She called these “doughnuts.” Her aim was to create a pastry that her son, sea captain Elias Gregory, could keep aboard ship for long periods of time without spoiling — the lemon rind was added to prevent scurvy. Elias took 1500 of these doughnuts along on a voyage, and he and his crew enjoyed them immensely (rumor has it that many on the ship were moonlighting police officers). Upon returning to shore, Elias, a practical and frugal man, had a tinsmith make a circular cutter with a small hole in the center. He then asked his mother to whip up a new batch, without costly nuts in the middle, and though some sailors on the next expedition griped (“Hey, where’s the #@*%!* nut in my doughnut?!”), the deep-fried treats were savored nonetheless; plus, there were no cases of scurvy reported. Word of the doughnut rolled across the country, and an American treat was born.

Or: Doughnuts are a German creation, fancied in Holland and reproduced in America in the 1700s by the Dutch pilgrims of New England. These sweet little “nuts of dough” didn’t have holes — the Pennsylvania Dutch came up with this concept so the yeasty pastry could be more easily grabbed for a tunke, or dunk, in coffee.

Or: The “hole” was created in 1847 by sea captain Hanson Crockett Gregory, from Rockport, Maine, who poked out the soggy centers of his wife’s doughnuts and slipped them over the spokes of his ship’s wheel so that he could munch and steer simultaneously.

Whatever — food history is as contradictory and unreliable as any other. We do know for sure it wasn’t until the Twentieth Century that doughnuts were adorned with powdered sugar or iced toppings, stuffed with custard or jelly, and sold en masse at chains like Dunkin’ Donuts and Krispy Kreme. And that they’ve been available at Donut Connection (formerly Mister Donut), on 163rd Street in North Miami Beach, since 1961.

In all there are more than 35 types of doughnuts to select from here. The “raised” type, which are leavened with yeast and allowed to rise before frying, include jelly doughnuts pumped with strawberry, cherry, blueberry, and black raspberry, and cream-filled puffs of lemon, vanilla, chocolate, and dulce de leche. “White cake” doughnuts, leavened with baking powder, come plain, powdered, cinnamon-dusted, and in a number of chocolate guises: German chocolate, double chocolate, chocolate glazed, and chocolate with peanut or coconut topping. The crullers here are appropriately light and eggy, the Bismarcks (long and braided), as is custom, dense.

Donut Connection not only claims to sell the “world’s freshest donuts,” but the “world’s best coffee,” too. Let’s just say it was hot, and comparable to Dunkin’s brew. There are also muffins, cookies, bagels — and doughnut holes for those who don’t want the whole.

I agree with the overwhelming majority of doughnut enthusiasts who rate the Krispy product as clearly superior to Dunkin’s. Donut Connection, a decidedly smaller nationwide chain (with just seven branches in Florida), is also better than DD, and, though its doughnuts are not quite as freshly fluffy as at KK, you might consider the Connection anyway because:

1) It’s more homey, in a ramshackle way, than the more sterile corporate environments of other chain doughnut shops. Looks and feels like an old neighborhood diner, with locals sipping coffee at a ten-stool counter that runs parallel to a lineup of windowfront tables.

2) They serve mango, guava, honeydew, buttercrunch, and peanut-flavored doughnuts, which I don’t recall being available elsewhere.

3) Price per doughnut– Krispy: 70-75 cents; Dunkin’: 71 cents; Connection: 55 cents. And that’s pretty much the hole story.