During the spring of 1969, while the Brits and French were busy launching their supersonic airliner, the Concorde, Merieta Altrichter was busy launching what would eventually become the World’s Best Donuts shop, located in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Hand-mixing her cake donuts in a plastic bowl tilted on its side, she offered a choice of plain, sugared and cinnamon sugared in those days.
Fifty years later, cake donuts are only one of nearly 30 donut recipes; basically, a glossary of donuts: dunked, drizzled, dipped, sprinkled, frosted, filled, glazed, powdered, twisted and knotted scrumptious goodness.
“Of course doughnuts in some form or other have been around so long that archaeologists keep turning up fossilized bits of what look like doughnuts in the middens of prehistoric Native American settlements,” writes David A. Taylor for Smithsonian Magazine. “It is true that the humble doughnut does have a convoluted past that involves Dutch immigrants, Russian exiles, French bakers, Irving Berlin, Clark Gable and a certain number of Native Americans.”
The “official” donut, we all crave today, supposedly came to the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (present day Lower Manhattan Island) under the unappetizing Dutch name of olykoeks- –“oily cakes.”
Oily because they were deep-fried in pure lard …shorthand, to my generation, for unhealthy obesity.
Corby Kummer, endorsed as the dean of food writers in America, refers to lard as “the great misunderstood fat.”
Nutritionalist Jo Travers of the British Dietetic Association even suggests, “Lard has actually quite a lot of the monounsaturated fats, and that is the heart healthy fat” (I can envision a run on donuts).
Add to this lard’s characteristic, as Fran McCullough, author of The Good Fat Cookbook, points out, “It is absolutely the best for frying.” As any doughnut aficionado will attest, it’s what gives World’s Best donuts that crispy outside.
After working at the donut shop since she was young, third generation Dee Brazell, now sole owner of World’s Best Donuts, acknowledges they use nearly fourteen thousand pounds of lard (the “new health food”) a year.
As one happy customer from Eau Claire, Wis. commented, “They are so good you can eat them like potato chips and not feel too bad about it!”
When asked how many donuts the iconic little shop has sold over the years, “GrammaRita” would always say, “We sell more donuts than McDonald’s sells hamburgers …because they have time to count.”
Can you think of anything more delicious and satisfying than a fresh, warm, pillowy doughnut glazed in hot syrup or the famous World’s Best original flattened spheres christened Skizzles?
Donuts are the love and livelihood of a five-generation donut family.
Over the years, the family has encouraged, “While you’re visiting, buy a World’s Best Donuts coffee mug and take a picture of it on your travels. Send the photo to us, and we’ll add it to our collection in the coffee room for everyone to see!”
Today, the cozy, redand white, old-fashioned coffee room displays pictures of their coffee mug visiting almost every state in the U.S. as well as many foreign countries.
And you may be surprised to know, the World’s Best Donuts mug has even flown on the Concord!
Congratulations on 50 sweet years!
Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.
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