There's a page on my website about fried ice cream. The reason it's there to be honest is not because I prefer ice cream fried but because it is very popular in a number of countries. Let's face it, we all need to eat a healthy diet and I'm the first to agree with that idea but once in a while we all need a treat and when it comes to food, fried food for some people is just that - a special treat. So put ice cream into a fried context and it's a winner.
Then I got to thinking about what other fried desserts are popular and of course probably the most popular has to be doughnuts. What I didn't realise until recently was that doughnuts have a variety of other names in different parts of the world - Churro in Mexico, Oliebollen in the Netherlands, Balushai in India, Berliner or Krapfen in Germany and Zeppola in Italy to name a few.
I came across a web page about the history of doughnuts which has some fascinating facts and claims that it was the Portuguese who spread the basic recipe for fried dough to different parts of the world. Wikipedia's page contests this with one suggestion that it might have been Dutch settlers who first brought the idea of fried dough to North America. Here's the wiki page on doughnuts for anyone interested. Whoever was responsible matters little in my view - doughnuts are here to stay. Just don't eat too many!
Then I got to thinking about what other fried desserts are popular and of course probably the most popular has to be doughnuts. What I didn't realise until recently was that doughnuts have a variety of other names in different parts of the world - Churro in Mexico, Oliebollen in the Netherlands, Balushai in India, Berliner or Krapfen in Germany and Zeppola in Italy to name a few.
I came across a web page about the history of doughnuts which has some fascinating facts and claims that it was the Portuguese who spread the basic recipe for fried dough to different parts of the world. Wikipedia's page contests this with one suggestion that it might have been Dutch settlers who first brought the idea of fried dough to North America. Here's the wiki page on doughnuts for anyone interested. Whoever was responsible matters little in my view - doughnuts are here to stay. Just don't eat too many!