And I am Ghee Vada. Nice to Meet You, Mr. Donut.
An increasing number of people worldwide are ditching “doughnuts” in favor of “donuts”. Even the multinational American fast food company Dunkin Donuts adopted the simplified spelling years ago. Whichever spelling you prefer, the taste remains the same. The other day, I was invigilating a test. When the last test taker had left, I flipped through a textbook a student had surrendered after a last-minute review and forgotten to claim on leaving the venue. The page I opened to was one that told the story of the doughnut. (I had noticed the textbook earlier on but resisted the temptation to dip into it to satisfy my curiosity. It turned out to have been an exercise in delayed gratification.) To my surprise, I learned that donuts came to America with Dutch settlers in the 18 th century. Those donuts didn’t have a hole in the middle as they do today. The story goes like this. Elizabeth Gregory, the mother of the captain of a merchant ship, would prepare her olykoek...