Why are Donuts called ‘Donuts?”

Nowadays, people are so used to calling donuts ‘donuts,’ but do we all know why they are called ‘donuts?’ One time, a question suddenly popped up in my mind: Why are donuts called ‘donuts?’ Although we may not know why donuts are called ‘donuts’ right now, after reading this article, I am sure you will understand why.

First of all, I think you should know where donuts came from. Donuts came from the Netherlands, by Dutch settlers bringing donuts (olykoek) with them to New York, or, New Amsterdam. But their donuts didn’t yet have the ring-sized shape of the donut as today’s donuts. The word olykoek means a Dutch delicacy of “sweetened cake fried in fat.” Even though donuts are from Dutch, the person who thought of a ring-sized donut is an American, named Hanson Gregory. Since he didn’t like the greasiness of donuts and a bunch of different shapes of donuts, he decided to punch a hole in the center with the ship’s tin pepper box, and later taught this to his mom. As I learned about this, I was surprised by the fact that donuts didn’t have a hole in the center in the beginning, because I thought that was the key point of donuts. 

Since now you know where donuts came from, you should learn why they are called donuts. Washington Irving’s reference to “doughnuts in 1809 in his History of New York says, “balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks.” The word nut meant “small rounded cake or cookie” in the past, so it might have meant donut holes. Although doughnut is the traditional spelling, the shortened form donut is also in the dictionary, as the word doughnut is.

In conclusion, donuts came from the Netherlands and are called doughnuts (donuts) because it’s a dough with a hole in it. Now we know why donuts are called donuts and even know where they came from. I would be so happy if I gave you at least a little bit of information about donuts and I hope we can continue to inform people in this world about donut