Doughnut Day! So much for the diet
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Ali Elzen of Ali’s Bakery talks about the different kinds of doughnuts he makes fresh daily for sale at his coffee-and-pastry shop located on Sixth Street north of the courthouse square. This Friday is National Doughnut Day, which was first celebrated as a Salvation Army fundraiser in Chicago in 1938.
Memorial Day is over, which means there won’t be another summer holiday until the Fourth of July, right?
Wrong.
You may never have heard of it, but the day after tomorrow marks one of the sweetest, tastiest tributes on the calendar — National Doughnut Day, traditionally celebrated on the first Friday in June.
True, nobody gets off work on National Doughnut Day, but at least you’re allowed to feel a bit less guilty about stopping off for a big glazed number and a cup of coffee on the way into the office. In fact, why not order up one of those calorie bombs with the chocolate icing and sprinkles?
After all, National Doughnut Day comes but once a year.
And yes, this is a real — if very unofficial — holiday.
A quick Google search reveals that National Doughnut Day, originally just Donut Day, was established by the Salvation Army in 1938 to honor the contributions 20 years earlier of “donut lassies” during World War I. The lassies were Salvation Army overseas volunteers, mostly young women, who started making doughnuts and serving them to American soldiers fighting in France.
According to some accounts, the doughnuts were often prepared using an upside-down helmet as a deep fryer and led to members of the American Expeditionary Forces being called “doughboys.”
It’s a nice story, but the “doughboy” part probably isn’t true, since scholars have traced the term, as it applies to U.S. infantrymen and Marines, back to the 1840s.
One theory is that during the Mexican-American War American troops were constantly covered with dust from marching through desert terrain, giving the men the appearance of unbaked dough.
But in any case, the doughnuts served by the Salvation Army in France in 1918 were a big hit, and two decades later, according to the Salvation Army’s national website, the first National Doughnut Day was celebrated in Chicago to raise money for people living in poverty during the Great Depression.
In the decades since, bakeries, shops and food stores have often offered free or discounted doughnuts to soldiers and others on the first Friday in June, and this year that tradition is being resurrected by the Maryville Hy-Vee supermarket on South Main Street.
Store Director Chris Wiltfong said his bakery crew plans to prepare about 1,000 glazed doughnuts for the daylong celebration, which will begin around 6 a.m. and last until the last ring of fried dough leaves the store. Wiltfong said the store sells about 150 doughnuts on an average day.
On Friday, glazed doughnuts will be sold for 50 cents each, he said, and will be given away free to ambulance crew members, police officers, firefighters and military personnel.
“This is just a little bit of feel-good,” Wiltfong said, “something that’s fun to do.”
In addition to cheap, or free, doughnuts, the supermarket will also be selling “Luther burgers” beginning at 11 a.m. on Friday and continuing until about 7 p.m.
Named after its reputed inventor, the late soul music legend Luther Vandross, a Luther burger is basically a hamburger tucked between two halves of a glazed doughnut instead of a bun.
The Hy-Vee version, at eight bucks a pop, will also include a fried egg, American cheese and bacon along with waffle fries and a soft drink on the side.
Vandross, it might be worth noting, died of a heart attack at age 54.
While no formal celebration is planned, plenty of fresh, made-from-scratch doughnuts will also be on hand Friday morning — as every morning — at Ali’s Bakery, a popular coffee-and-pastry hangout at 108 E. Sixth Street.
Ali’s proprietor, Ali Elzen, said Tuesday morning from behind his service counter that he wasn’t aware Friday was National Doughnut Day. However, a satisfied customer, not quite speaking with his mouth full, quickly chimed in, “Around here, every day is doughnut day.”
Elzen, who said he has probably made millions of doughnuts during his career, speculated that the treat may have originated by mistake when some nameless cook accidentally punched a hole in a lump of dough and decided to fry it up as is.
The hole, Elzen added, is key, because it allows the dough to cook evenly from both the outside in and the center out. Hole-less doughnuts, he said, while still scrumptious, have a slightly denser texture and more bread-like taste.
Elzen provided samples of both “holy” and hole-less doughnuts to a Daily Forum staff member as this article was being researched, and in-depth investigative reporting subsequently revealed that each is delicious.
Ali said that while most chain stores buy their doughnuts readymade then heat them up and glaze them on site, he still makes his the old-fashioned way, rising early each morning to mix flour, eggs, milk, sour cream, honey and other ingredients in order to create yeast-raised dough. The shop’s various glazes and toppings are hand-made as well.
“There are no additives and no chemicals,” he said. “We don’t buy anything from outside.”
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
The Maryville Hy-Vee supermarket doughnut case, pictured above, will be full to overflowing on Friday during the store’s National Doughnut Day event, which will feature doughnut-encased “Luther burgers” and free glazed doughnuts for first responders and U.S. military personnel.
