Who First Fried the Dough?

Deniz Orhun
2 hours ago
4 min read

Published: American TurkNetwork Magazine, Washington DC, April 2026 , "CULINARY CHRONICLES"

The International Franchise Association highlights Benjamin Franklin as the first American to franchise a business concept, long before the term existed. He’s widely regarded as the “Father of franchising in the USA”. He expanded his printing business using franchise-like partnerships in the 1730s, developing a system that remarkably resembled franchising. Brand reputation, standardized tools, training, territorial expansion, and profit-sharing were the backbone of his model. It suggests franchising took root in America far earlier than we typically assume. We can say that Franklin’s model is the conceptual ancestor of every modern bakery franchise in the US.

In the early-to-mid 1900s, fried dough & basic baked products formed the foundation of franchise-style bakeries. One of the earliest was “Open Kettle, Doughnut Shop,” established in 1948, which was later rebranded as Dunkin’ Donuts. William Rosenberg founded the company in 1950 and began franchising it in 1955.

Early American fried cakes have Dutch roots. American donuts evolved from Dutch fried cakes, oil cakes “olykoeks”, brought by Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (now New York) in the 1600s. These were balls of sweet dough fried in fat, sometimes studded with dried fruit. They had no hole in the middle yet. The mystery of the hole emerged by the 1800s, when Americans were making “doughnuts” that often cooked unevenly with raw centers. The famous (though possibly mythical) story credits a New England sailor, Hanson Gregory, who supposedly punched a hole in the center, so they’d fry evenly, and solved the raw center. The simple engineering solution became standard practice. By the late 1800s and early 1900s, doughnut recipes spread through American cookbooks with mostly home baking recipes and small bakeries. During the Mexican War, WWI, and WWII doughnuts became associated with soldiers. Although historians trace the nickname “doughboy” as military slang, there are various theories about its origins, but many soldiers had grown up with fried dough traditions, from farm‑kitchen crullers to church‑basement doughnuts, foods that carried the warmth of home into the uncertainty of war. When Salvation Army volunteers began serving doughnuts on the front lines, the gesture resonated instantly because it matched a flavor memory the soldiers already knew. The result was a powerful cultural fusion, binding the soldiers’ identity to a patriotic, comforting connection that reminded them of home. Here’s an unusual “tradition”; first responders believe doughnuts bring good luck during their shifts. They often start events with one and avoid saying “it’s quiet” because the joke is that mentioning it jinxes the shift with a big emergency. It’s unwritten but widely known.

In the 1920s, the first known automatic donut machine was invented by Adolph Levitt in New York. People could watch the donuts being made in shop windows, turning donut-making into a kind of theater. After that, donut shops and later franchises (like Dunkin’) standardized the product, same glaze, same ring, same size.

Tracing Fried Dough

If you look at donuts in a bigger historical picture, they’re part of a huge family of fried dough sweets that stretches from ancient Mesopotamia and other early agricultural societies. Trade routes, wars, and empires mixed food ideas everywhere. In ancient civilization period, through migration to Mediterranean coasts, some possible route to Southern-Northen Europe passed through Anatolia-Europe bridge continent (now Türkiye), it’s totally possible that some fried dough tradition was born in ancient Mesopotamia, traveled to Anatolia, picked up some inspiration from there, and then absorbed influences from Holy Roman roots, Ashkenazi Jews population in Northern Italy, Germany, Poland. They brought the culture to America. When it comes to cultural lineage, and migration of foodways, where so much is lost or undocumented, tracing a culinary thread across civilization is worthwhile, it drives work to new inventions.

Here are the same family, different names of the global fried dough family tree and cousins: paczki-Poland, lokma-Türkiye, donut-USA, beignets-France/USA, zeppole-Italy, oliebolien-Netherlands, churros-Spain/Portugal, tulumba-Türkiye, gulabjamun-India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, malpua-Nepal, youtiao-China, khanom khai hong -Thailand, an doughnut- Japan, chapssal donuts-Korea.

No one empire can really say “we invented fried dough”. If everyone tried to legally claim fried dough, half the world would be in court, and the other half would be at the buffet. Migration and geography tell the story, yet now countries compete for “ownership,” playing an identity game through branding and tourism. But here’s the thing: all these fried doughs are just another version of the same thing. They’ve traveled and evolved through culture, migration, tools, and time. Slapping a country name in front of or behind an ingredient doesn’t mean it belongs to them. Yet successful franchises understand this paradox perfectly; they don’t sell the product/dough, they sell the story. Donut doesn’t scream “American”. Marketing for a successful patisserie franchise, be the first, be unique, or nail a name that tells the story of your ingredients.

We’ve turned culinary traditions into identity politics. The real invention isn’t claiming ownership; it’s telling your story better than anyone else.

With that said, we should have a “World Fried Dough Day”, “World Yogurt Day”, “World Dumpling Day”, and let every country bring its version. The best place in the world for these events would be the USA. Oh!! Did I just use "food fight" to boost tourism income?

Here’s one of the world’s elegant fried dough recipes..