Donuts are a staple breakfast food. Served during early office meetings at the Sunday morning table or picked up during your morning coffee you can’t escape the associations of the pastry with breakfast. The fried pastries with a yeast or cake base are often covered with icing. At first glance they look more like a dessert. But how exactly did donuts become a staple breakfast food?
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 Weird History Food | 2023-03-12 14:15:00 |  1,536,098 Views |
Reasons Why American Breakfasts Are the Way They Are
Let’s go back to the beginning. After all donuts weren’t always a breakfast food. What we know as donuts today originated in the Netherlands in the 19th century. Back then donuts were called olykoeks which means “oil cakes” in English. These cookies were brought to the United States by Dutch immigrants and quickly became a hit in the United States as a snack. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the food became a breakfast treat thanks to the invention of donut machines.
These machines made donuts a bakery staple. Since many bakeries relied on selling morning coffee along with their daily bread coffee and donuts quickly became inseparable. Stores like Dunkin' focused almost exclusively on selling the bitter-sweet combination. A morning donut paired with coffee quickly became a quick and easy breakfast for people on the go and from there on the pastry became a breakfast classic.
It seems that the core of donuts' breakfast ties lies in their association with coffee the caffeinated beverage that's a morning staple for many around the world. But donuts aren't the only baked good with a strong association with coffee. In France for example coffee (or espresso or a frothy noisette) is often served with a croissant (which Marie Antoinette didn't actually bring to France) or pain au chocolat. In Mexico conchas a sweet bread shaped like shells are a popular breakfast food that's often served with coffee. So it seems that sweet treats and coffee are a match made in heaven. And it's easy to see why.
