I'm all for chefs that are forward-thinking, envelope-pushing and inventive and I love trying new and different food. Sometimes, though, tried-and-true recipes don't need to be dawdled with too much. A good example would be doughnuts...would you freaks just leave my doughnuts alone, please.
Given where I'm from (South Carolina) I have very specific ideas about what a doughnut is. It's a round lump of sweet, fried batter with a hole in it, bathed in hot, melty sugar goop. It is probably among the least healthy foods one can eat and thank God for that! I once, almost by accident, ate a dozen doughnuts during one six-hour air shift at a radio station that I bought from some kid walking door-to-door selling them to raise money for his church...for the building fund I would guess. During my college years, I worked at a Spartanburg radio station for a while on weekends and made it a point to swing by Krispy Kreme for doughnuts and a nearly frozen glass of milk that came out of a big metal decanter every week. Sadly, the decanter is long gone and they sell milk in plastic bottles now, which isn't as cold or as good, but when the "Hot now" sign is lit, it might as well say "Blissful euphoria is now available for purchase." Of course, the aim of every restaurant is to grow beyond their original territorial borders and go nationwide. When I was young, I didn't know there were places other than Krispy Kreme that sold doughnuts. Several other chains have sprung up around here now, though, so there are lots of different doughnuts to choose from. It's often said that variety is the spice of life, but where doughnuts are concerned, I say variety is a big ol' bag of dookie. I don't care whom it offends, I openly oppose those cake-ish doughnuts. They are usually dry and, in my opinion, do not even qualify as doughnuts. It's sort of like when people in North Carolina mix up some vinegar with pepper flakes and call it "barbecue sauce." I've had some that are good, actually, but that stuff is actually barbecue juice, since "sauce" indicates some level of thickness and consistency. But I digress...those kinds of "doughnuts" are really just tiny little malformed cakes. They are a baked good with a birth defect...their no count mamas probably smoked while they were pregnant. They aren't all bad, really, but they also ain't doughnuts. The presence of a hole doesn't qualify something as being a doughnut. If you cut a hole in a hamburger, it doesn't make it a doughnut, it makes it a stupid-looking hamburger. My head has a bunch of holes in it, but it isn't a doughnut either, which is good since I would have eaten myself a long time ago if it were, just like Homer Simpson. This is where things start to get tricky...there does need to be a hole for something to qualify as a doughnut. You can go to most any doughnut shop and get sticky things filled with fruit, jellies, custard and other confections. I like some of them, but they are not doughnuts. They are a "danish" or a "pastry" or, as I have always called any sugary, sort of round item that isn't a doughnut, "sweet rolls." They don't have a hole in them, though, because the blueberry goo would drip out...so, they are not a doughnut. Beyond the cake-ish things and jelly-on-the-inside sweet rolls, though, there has arisen a whole, weird world of flavored doughnuts. I've eaten one. It was a round thing with a hole in it that tasted like maple syrup and bacon. It was tasty, with a nice sweet/smokey contrast. It tasted kind of like a pig-in-a-blanket, which is probably what it should be called. That was tame compared to some of the other things out there, though. A lot of people like doughnuts and a lot of people like booze, so a number of enterprising folks have tried combining the two. I've seen a strawberry margarita doughnut that includes both salt and tequila. You can also find Guinness-pear doughnuts, which might be the most random flavor this side of ham hock/marshmallow. It has pears inside of it (which means there is no hole which equals "not a doughnut") that have been stewed in dark Guinness beer. I like beer and I like pears but that doesn't mean the two would be good together. I mean, I like taking a bath and I like making toast, but combining the two is pretty dangerous. Fellow blawger Richard Brockman and I were both a watching the same food-related show last night and had a disagreement. At fairs, pulled pork sandwiches with doughnuts as the bun is an actual real thing that is catching on. He was intrigued and I was disgusted. Barbecue is my favorite food in the world (you haven't seen me launching a kale blawg have you?) but that just sounds like midway hucksterism. I'll slap two wacky things together and people will just have to try it! I get the sweet/savory combination thing, but it had pickles and slaw on it. Cabbage and sugar and sour pickles and barbecue sauce in each bite sounds positively chunder-inducing. Seriously, eat that slop then get on a shoddily-constructed tilt-a-whirl for a few minutes and see what happens. Did you know you can get doughnuts infused with the taste of spicy sausage? Did you even want to know that? I didn't, but in Los Angeles, you can sure enough get chorizo and cheddar doughnuts...which, if there is meat and cheese in it, we've entered biscuit territory I think, just a dumb biscuit with a hole in it. I've seen some green tea doughnuts, but they are very green, which isn't appetizing. It's like a moldy inner tube. Vegan doughnuts and ones brimming with trail mix are apparently popular with people who embrace healthy lifestyles...and disgusting doughnuts. Keep your damn, dirty raisins out of my doughnuts, hippy! I know I sound like a hypocrite touting my diverse palate while simultaneously poo-pooing things that don't fit with my traditional doughnut mindset. I'm also playing with semantics arbitrarily in determining what I think even qualifies as a doughnut. Whatever. I'm open to new things, but everything isn't a good idea and some flavors simply don't meld well. A fried doughnut with a sugary glaze is perfect in it's simplicity. To me, that's what a doughnut is. Ideas that vary from that are just full of holes.
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