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Recently, my sister raised the subject of the 1957 Spaghetti Tree Harvest Documentary, recalling that this was the first time millions of British viewers learned the origins of the popular and, at the time, somewhat exotic dish. It occurred to me that many modern Americans also remain unaware of the origins of common foodstuffs. For example, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and a multitude of other plants are genetically identical, but selectively bred over the centuries to express wildly different traits. In this essay, I will discuss the taxonomy of another formerly wild species: the common North American Donut.
The history of the Donut can be traced back to the city of Krakow, Poland in the seventeenth century, when a parasite descended from yeast fungi laid waste to Krakow’s grain fields. The Jewish farmers of Krakow discovered that they could conserve the nutrients of the afflicted grain by harvesting the mature fruiting bodies of the fungus, and thus the Bagel was born.
Bagels proved to be a Godsend for the hungry mouths of Krakow, and in following centuries the practice of Bagel cultivation spread across Europe, the Middle East, and eventually the Americas. However, the True Donut emerged relatively recently, after the fungus encountered the sugar cane fields of the American South in the mid-nineteenth century. Another cultivar, the Jelly Donut, developed convergently when the fungus infected the sugar beet fields farther north.
The confections rose in popularity almost overnight, but the fruits spoil quickly once harvested and thus cannot be shipped over long distances. Now, at this point in history, Donuts were also still closely related to their Bagel cousins, manifesting as one or more rings on each grain of wheat, then the most common grain grown in the United States. However, only one or two fruiting bodies per plant actually reached maturity, which negatively affected the cost-benefit ratio of growing the delicacy. Nevertheless, demand for Donuts remained high in their native regions, so the crop persevered.
It is interesting to note that, like some other fungi, the Bagel Fungus expresses more than one thousand distinct sexes which can combine in a variety of ways for astonishing results. Thus, over the decades many regional cultivars were developed, such as the Bavarian Cream and other “filled” Donuts. The Donut Hole derives from a fasciation of the heirloom Yeast Ring Donut.
I must mention at this point that there exist other types of “Donuts” such as the Apple Crumble and the Cruller. However, these are not True Donuts; rather, they are man-made pastries created in parts of the country where True Donut cultivation was impossible. Today, of course, modern technology has provided us with climate-controlled environments in which we can grow the various cultivars of Donuts virtually anywhere in the nation. The Apple Crumble and the Cruller remain popular, though, and can commonly be found anywhere True Donuts are sold.
In 1941, Lester Borchardt of the General Mills Company developed a method of harvesting and drying the immature fruiting bodies, which the company introduced to mass markets as the breakfast “cereal” Cheerioats, which we know today as Cheerios. Further progress has been made in the GMO sector with the development of the Strawberry Shortcake Donut, an artificial hybrid of the Jelly and Vanilla Cream varieties. GMO Donut production is still in its infancy, however, and the Strawberry Shortcake Donut is available only in limited quantities from certain sellers.
Another interesting development of uncertain origin is the Iced Donut, such as the Boston Cream, which is a Filled Donut with an unusual companion. The chocolate-flavored topping is in fact yet another type of fungus in the slime mold family. Theories abound as to how these two fungi came together, but the accepted version is that the Chocolate Slime Mold originated in the cocoa trees of Central and South America. As a slime mold, the Chocolate Slime Mold seems to possess some awareness both of the presence of food (specifically, the True Donut, which makes the Chocolate Slime Mold a type of hyperparasite) and of impending danger. Additionally, the Chocolate Slime Mold has a slime mold’s capacity for movement, which is the reason it inevitably tries to slide off when it senses its host Donut being eaten.
In conclusion, large-scale production of the various cultivars of the True Donut has become popular all over the world. Some producers are even jealously guarded by law enforcement personnel, a remarkable form of symbiosis between fungus and mammal. The Bagel remains a dietary staple, of course, but the True Donut retains its gastronomical niche through careful human cultivation, and it is likely that both will survive well into the next century.