Doughnut (pronounced doh-nuht)
(1) A deep-fried piece of dough or batter, usually mixed with various sweeteners and flavors, often made in a toroidal or ellipsoidal shape flattened sphere shape filled with jelly/jam, custard or cream and sometimes glazed.
(2) In
engineering, a variety of objects using this shape ranging from transmission
connectors to the reaction vessel of a thermonuclear reactor.
(3) In physics, a toroidal vacuum chamber.
(4) As
a descriptor, anything in the shape of a torus (thick ring); an annular object; a toroid.
(5) In
(informal) parliamentary jargon, to surround a speaker with other members during
the filming of a speech to create the illusion the chamber is crowded and
people are interested in what he is saying.
(6) In slang,
the vulva and (by extension) a woman's virginity, a derived form being the “doughnut
bumper” (a lesbian).
(7) In UK
colloquial use, a foolish or stupid person (based on the idea of “nut” being
used as slang for the head, filled with dough (a soft, inert substance); Now rare except as a regionalism although the companion “a bit doughy” (ie "a bit dense") endures.
(8) In admiralty slang, a circular life raft.
(9) In the slang of musicians, a whole note.
(10) In automotive use, a "peel-out" or skid mark in the shape of a circle; a 360-degree skid created with deliberately excessive wheelspin, also associated with the "burn out". The term is most used in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and in the latter it's most associated with (though not restricted to) "bogan culture". Behavioral zoologists have noted the striking similarity between the tyre marks left on the road and the way some animals urinate to "mark their territory" but this may be drawing a long anthropological bow.
(11) In automotive use, a spare car tyre, smaller than a full-sized tyre and intended only for temporary use.
(12) In aviation, a type of tyre for an airplane with a rounded tread profile and a high sidewall which interacts (as a shock absorber) with the landing gear's hydraulics.
(13) In rehabilitative medicine. a toroidal cushion typically used by hemorrhoid (piles) patients.
(14) In hair styling, a shaper around which hair tightly can be bound.
(15) In vulgar slang, the vulva; by extension, a woman's virginity.
(16) In the vulgar slang of the male gay community, a "puffy" anus with the outward shape of a donut (though it can be applied generally to any anus); the companion term is "donut hole".
1809:
The construct was dough + nut. Dough was
from the Middle English dow, dogh
& dagh, from the Old English dāg, from the Proto-Germanic daigaz (dough), from the primitive Indo-European
dheygh (to knead, form, mold). It was cognate with the Scots daich, dauch & doach (dough), the West Frisian daai
(dough), the Dutch deeg (dough), the Low
German Deeg (dough), the German Teig (dough), the Norwegian Bokmål deig (dough), the Danish dej (dough), the Swedish deg (dough) and the Icelandic deig (dough). Nut was from the Middle English nute & note, from the Old English hnutu,
from the Proto-West Germanic hnut,
from the Proto-Germanic hnuts (nut) (the
form may be compared with the West Frisian nút,
the Dutch noot, the German Nuss, the Danish nød, the Swedish nöt and
the Norwegian nøtt), from the root knu-, seen also in the Proto-Celtic knūs (source of Irish cnó) and the Latin nux (nut). There are etymologists
who, noting the form of the nouns and the restriction of the root to Germanic,
Celtic and Italic, argue it may be of non-Indo-European origin. The adoption to mean “fastening device for a
bolt” is conventionally traced to the Old English hnutu (hard-shelled fruit with a seed inside (acorn, chestnut etc),
based upon (1) the appearance and (2) an analogy between the hard outer shell
of a nut and the protective function of the metal nut in securing a bolt (ie a nut,
like its botanical counterpart, encases and protects something (in this case,
the threaded end of a bolt). The use has
been documented since the early-fifteenth century and has been used in mechanical
and engineering contexts since. Doughnut is a
noun & verb and doughnutting & doughnutted are verbs; the noun plural
is doughnuts.
Etymologists
note the spelling “donut” was not unknown in the first half of the twentieth
century but was rare. The event which
seemed to have triggered the widespread adoption was the “quick service”
restaurant Open Kettle (founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1948) in 1950
changing its name to Dunkin' Donuts and, as a franchise operation, Dunkin'
Donuts spread nationwide so along with the classic FSS (fat, salt & sugar)
product came linguistic change, an example of the haphazard way English
evolves. Curiously, although Dunkin'
Donuts Australia sites were by 2009 shuttered (after a two-decade run), the
linguistic legacy endures and “donut” & “doughnut” peacefully co-exist
whereas in the dozen-odd other countries where Dunkin' Donuts retains a
presence, the latter is said to remain the mainstream spelling.
In all markets, Krispy
Kreme continues to use “doughnut”, the company founded in North Carolina in
1937 at a time when the spelling was (almost) uncontested. The first known evidence of the word
“doughnut” appearing in print was in 1809 in Washington Irving’s (1783–1859) Knickerbocker’s History of New York and
to refer to fried dough balls (ie literally “nuts of dough”) as “doughnuts” was
etymologically and descriptively sound because, being then usually round with
no hole and often stuffed with nuts or fruit preserves, the allusion was to
nuts in the sense of the edible kernels from plants, not the fastener used with
a bolt. The brand-name Dunkin’ Donuts reflects
the trend in mid-twentieth US commerce to simplify spellings (in the spirit of
the sensible American rationalizations such as catalog vs catalogue, color vs
colour etc) to make them “catchier” as well as obviously “modern” (nite vs
night, thru vs through etc). Being
shorter, “donut” worked better on logos and signage and was very much part of
the post-war zeitgeist of speed, efficiency & convenience. Krispy Kreme never shifted their branding
because the traditional spelling was thought to impart a sense of “authenticity
and heritage” which tied in with the deliberately old-fashioned themes used in
the stores fit-out; nostalgia as a commodity.
Most major prescriptive dictionaries continue to “doughnut” as the
primary spelling, with “donut” as a variant, the popularity of the latter noted
as a linguistic phenomenon in North America, Australia and on-line.
Box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
What Washington Irving mentioned in 1809 (the “small, spongy cake made of dough and fried in lard”) was probably best described as “a lump” because there seems to be no suggestion the size and exact shape of the things were in any way standardized beyond being vaguely roundish. It’s not clear when the holes became common, the
first mention of them apparently in 1861 at which time one writer recorded that
in New York City (the old New Amsterdam) they were known also as olycokes (from
the Dutch oliekoek (oily cake) and
some food guides of the era listed doughnuts and crullers as “types of olycoke”. The spelling donut was typical of the
sensible and pragmatic simplification of spelling in US English and emerged in
the mid nineteenth century; the form donnut
did not last, the duplicated “n” obviously redundant. In
engineering, the word is widely applied including (1) the reaction vessel of a
thermonuclear reactor, (2) a circular life raft, (3) A toroidal vacuum chamber
(used in experimental physics), (4) a circular life raft, (5) certain types of
aircraft tyres, (6) a spare car tyre smaller than a full-sized tyre and intended
only for temporary use. In idiomatic use,
the phrase “bet you a dollar to a donut” fell victim to inflation. Dating from a time when a donut typically cost a dime (5 cents),
it thus implied odds of 20-1 and was part of a rich linguistic tradition which included memorable constructions such as "monkey to a mousetrap" (500-1).
As used to describe the behaviour in which a car is driven at low speed in
circles with the drive wheels spinning, thus leaving a circular track of rubber
on the road, the “donut” was first used circa 1981 in the US and it was picked up
around the world by males aged 17-25, the donut specialists.
The great Krispy Kreme doughnut heist.
In
November 2023, in Sydney, Australia, a Krispy Kreme delivery van loaded with 10,000
freshly fried doughuts was stolen from a 7/11 petrol (gas) station; police established a
crime scene and launched an investigation into the incident and some two weeks later a 28 year old woman was
charged with stealing after the Krispy Kreme van was found abandoned at a nearby
car-park in Parramatta. The donuts were
“destroyed”, according to a police spokesman and the authorities later
confirmed the suspect would be charged with "taking a driving conveyance without
the consent of the owner, driving a motor vehicle during a disqualification
period and travelling or attempting to travel without a valid ticket." The woman was refused bail, presumably because the police forces anywhere would regard a threat to the national doughnut supply as a serious offence.
World War I Salvation Army doughnut girl poster.
The dough-boy
was something which existed as early as the 1680s but it was something more
like a pancake than a donut and doughboys were widely known; because the
distinctive buttons on the uniforms worn by soldiers of the American
expeditionary forces sent to Europe in 1971 to afforce the Allies in World War
I (1914-1918) were the same shape, the soldiers were nicknamed “doughboys”. Doughnuts were supplied to troops during
World War I by a Christian organization, the Salvation Army (which uses military ranks but isn't really a paramilitary formation except in the sense of the later term "moral rearmament") which recruited some
250 woman volunteers who settled on the fried items because they could be
prepared quickly and cheaply with minimal equipment and required only ingredients
which were readily available through most military supply depots. The doughnuts were originally quite small
but, responding to suggestions, the women had a blacksmith fashion a mold for
the now now-iconic circular shape with a hole in the centre.
World War I doughnut girl (left) and World War II (right) donut dolly. It was during the later conflict the term "donut dolly" supplanted "doughnut girl", presumably because of the alliterative appeal. Airline stewardesses (flight attendants) were (in less enlightened times) sometimes called "trolley dollies", the phonetic attraction there the rhyme although alliteration clearly appealed to the (always male) pilots of the era who preferred "flying fucks".
Production at scale soon followed and they
were distributed also to civilians; it was at this point, for better and worse,
that French society hungrily adopted the doughnut. During World
War II (1939-1945), the system was formalized with the Red Cross taking over
the operation and although it was never an official term, the women were known popularly as “donut dollies”, recruited on the basis of (1) being aged 25-35,
(2) having a high school diploma, (3) appropriate work experience, (4) good
reference letters and (5) “healthy, physically hardy, sociable and attractive”. By the time of the D-Day landings in Normandy (6 June 1944), the Red Cross had some 100 British Army buses operating with fully-equipped
kitchens, the donut-machines provided by the American Donut Company. The donuts were served with coffee and the
donut dollies were able to supply also those staples of army life: chewing gum
and cigarettes.
Rotoflex
doughnuts
Totoflex "Doughnut" coupling.
Rotoflex
couplings were often used in the 1960s to connect differential output shafts to
the rear hubs. Usually called “rubber
doughnut”, they were popular in road cars such as the Triumph GT6 and racing
machinery as varied as the Ford GT40 and Lotus 21 because, prior to the
availability of suitable constant velocity (CV) joints, there was really no
better alternative. Although subject to
wear, usually they worked well but Lotus also used them on the Elan, the rear
suspension of which was exceptionally supple rear, providing for significant
vertical wheel travel which resulted on the deformation of Rotoflex doughnuts,
the phenomenon known as a “wind up”. While
readily detectable by experienced drivers who learned to adjust their clutching
technique, it could be disconcerting to those unused to the Elan’s quirks.
Doughnut installed: rear suspension of 1972 Lotus
Elan Sprint.
In recent years, some of the replacement doughnuts manufactured in the Far East have been of sometimes dubious
quality so except for those dedicated to maintaining originality, many Elans
have been converted to use half-shafts built with CV joints. When in 1971 the Elan was updated with a more
powerful engine, the company did experiment with other methods but it was clear
the elasticity of the doughnuts was integral to the design and without them the
famously precise handling characteristics suffered. Now however, although expensive, more
rigid Rotoflex doughnuts are available which preserve the precision
although at the cost of adding an occasional harshness to the Elan’s exceptionally
smooth ride.
Crab
Doughnuts: Chiltern Firehouse, London
Chiltern Firehouse Crab Doughnuts
Recipe
Ingredients (doughnuts)
540g strong white flour (plus extra
to dust)
70g caster sugar
2 tsp Maldon sea salt (plus 1 tbsp
to dust)
1 tsp instant yeast
140ml water (room temperature)
4 large free range eggs
Grated zest of 3 un-waxed lemons
130g unsalted butter (thinly sliced
and chilled)
500ml sunflower oil (for deep
frying, plus extra for greasing)
3 tbsp icing sugar (to dust)
1 tbsp ground cinnamon (to dust)
Ingredients (tomato juice)
10 beef tomatoes (or whatever is the
largest variety available)
2 cloves garlic (green germ removed
and cloves chopped)
1 shallot (chopped)
¼ red chilli (de-seeded and chopped)
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tbsp fish sauce
Maldon sea salt (to taste)
Ingredients (crab filling)
200g picked white crab meat (from
the claws)
2 tbsp tomato juice
2 tbsp crème fraiche
1 tbsp basil leaves (thinly sliced)
2½ tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
Maldon sea salt (to taste)
Instructions (doughnuts)
(1) Place flour, sugar, salt and yeast
in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with dough hook attachment and mix at slow
speed. In separate bowl, combine water, eggs and lemon zest.
(2) Slowly add liquid mixture to flour
mixture (with mixer at slow speed) until it forms a dough. Increase the speed
and knead for 10-12 minutes, until the dough comes away from sides of bowl and
is smooth and elastic.
(3) Reduce speed to slow and add butter,
a slice at a time. Once all butter has been incorporated, increase speed, kneading
for a further 5-6 minutes (until sough is smooth).
(4) Cover bowl with clingfilm and place
it in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight, allowing dough to rest and
prove slowly. Next day, oil a baking sheet. Roll dough to a 2cm (¾ inch) thickness on a lightly
floured work surface and cut out 80 x 30 mm (3 x 1 ¼ inch) circles. Roll each circle into a
ball, placing them on oiled baking sheet. Cover and leave to prove for about
2-3 hours.
(5) Fill a deep saucepan or deep-fat
fryer with the sunflower oil (it should be about half-full) and place over a
medium heat until it reaches 175˚C. (350˚C).
Deep-fry doughnuts, four at a time, for 2-3 minutes, basting them
constantly with the oil until golden brown. To drain, transfer to a plate lined with
kitchen paper.
Instructions (tomato juice)
Cut tomatoes in half and squeeze out
seeds. Grate the flesh of the tomatoes on the side of a box grater over a bowl.
Place grated tomato flesh in the bowl of a food processor with the remaining
ingredients and blend until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a muslin cloth and
hang cloth over a bowl for 2 hours.
Instructions (crab filling)
Combine all ingredients in a bowl
and mix well. Cover and chill until ready to assemble.
Instructions (final assembly)
Cut each doughnut in half and fill
it with the chilled crab mixture. Mix the icing sugar in a bowl with the
cinnamon and salt, dusting doughnuts with the mix. Serve immediately. Left-over dough can be cut into 50-60 mm (2-2½
inch) circles and deep-fried until golden brown, then coated in sugar. They make a quick and indulgent treat.
Parliamentary doughnutting
An improbable Cassandra: Eric Abetz (b 1958, senator (Liberal Party) for Tasmania) 1994-2022) in the Australian Senate, Monday 26 November 2017, delivering an important speech opposing same-sex marriage, surrounded by his supporters. This is an example of how "parliamentary doughnutting" would have created a good photo-opportunity. The tactic is to assemble enough members to create the impression that what is being said (1) matters, (2) is interesting and (3) has some support.
