Fried dough is the new Hugh Jackman. This unscientific announcement is based on yesterday's brief paragraph about Laura and Ben discovering a place in Watertown that serves fried dough (in perfect bite-sized chunks) all year round which drew more than a few passionate comments about....fried dough. Technically, brants about Hugh Jackman -- anything to do with Hugh Jackman -- have drawn many more comments than her brief mention of fried dough yesterday but you get the drift. Helen Hill, Laura's new friend from L.A. (Sidebrant: Laura and Helen met in the parking garage underneath the Skirball Center after Laura's panel on Chick Lit back in January. They had so much to talk about there that they ended up taking the conversation out of the parking lot and onto email and then again onto Facebook where Laura regularly receives incredibly helpful and thoughtful and intuitive emails from Helen about the various things Laura is going through these days - oh did Laura happen to mention that Helen is a therapist?!? -- more on Helen eventually.) Anyway, Helen provided a link on Facebook to the Hungarian version of fried dough called Langos (or krumplislangos, langosh) -- here's a link she included to a site about "Ethnic Doughs" with a page called "Fried Dough Around the World" -- further confirming the fact that every culture has it's fill-in-the-blank: pizza, knish, ravioli, etc. The Italians have zepolle (little fried dough balls available at Saints Festivals), New Orleans has beignets (note: Laura is aware of the fact that if this were an SAT she would get the stupid question wrong because obviously "the Italians" and "New Orleans" are not comparable in their congruity [whatever that means], and the only reason she's saying "New Orleans" instead of "France" is because she actually ate beignets when she was in New Orleans about 15 years ago on Publicist-Duty and never ate them in France -- Laura's brant, as her loyal readers know [both of them] [hi Wendy] [hi Janet] is about authenticity, if nothing else), and if Laura had the time she write a whole long brant about other cultures/cuisines and their own versions of fried dough. But she doesn't have time for that. Because she has to finish her brant and spend the rest of the day taking Ben to his music lessons and his rehearsal for his next show, The Stones, and making sure the dog has pooped and peed a hundred times.
But Laura does have time to post the link to the page in Helen's link that has all of this information! With illustrations and photos and descriptions all right there! Go there and feast your eyes on all the cultural variations of fried dough and tell me if it doesn't make you want to roll yourself around in flour and jump in a fry-o-later....
And oh my God!-- there is even a history page on this site tracing fritters and fried lumps of pastry throughout the ages! Thanks Helen for a veritable treasure trove of information on fried dough!
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