In honor of National Donut Day we thought we’d celebrate by sharing some fascinating history about everyone's favorite pastry. So without further ado, here goes:
First off, we must credit the Dutch who brought a tasty treat they called a oliekoecken to the U.S.
The first donut machine was invented in 1920 in New York City by Adolph Levitt, a refugee from Russia, who simply couldn't make the darn things fast enough to meet demand.
Apparently, holes were not a feature of the original donut and were added later on as a matter of function. The egg yolks in a donut weigh down the pastry and thus the hole makes for a richer, more firm treat.
We all know that a donut is nothing without a nice cold glass of milk. The trend of dunking donuts in milk was born in 1934 when Clark Gable showed a fellow actor the "right way to do it" in the movie "It Happened One Night."
Then, in 1938, the Salvation Army invented the National Donut Day we all know and love. The goal of the joyous holiday was to "honor the women who served donuts to soldiers during World War I.”
The holiday, which takes place on the first Friday in June, is celebrated today with free pastries at many of the nation's biggest donut chains.
Now, there are more than 10 billion donuts made every year in the U.S. alone.
And experts estimated the donut store industry would bring in $11.6 billion in revenue in 2012.
Krispy Kreme's annual donut sales alone hit $108 million in 2011.
And there were 10,500 Dunkin’ Donut stores worldwide in 2012.
Indeed, people really love donuts! One guy loves them so much he ate six powdered donuts in three minutes!
That’s a lot of donuts, considering the average tasty treat has 195 calories.
We wonder how many calories were in the largest donut EVER, which weighed 1.7 tons!
But now the donut has some serious competition. Meet the cronut.
Is there room in the world for both donuts and cronuts? We sure hope so.