Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what Will? What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So you know what I think is completely underrated, like
Speaker 1: criminally underrated, is Intimen's Donuts.
Speaker 2: Oh heck, yeah, I'm with John.
Speaker 1: I mean, when I was a kid, I loved Intimate
Speaker 1: so much, and today I feel like you only see
Speaker 1: occasional references to them. You know, you might see him
Speaker 1: on Seinfeld or sometimes on thirty Rock episodes where Tina
Speaker 1: fags them a shoutout. But as a kid, I loved
Speaker 1: anytime my mom brought home those powdered donuts or or
Speaker 1: even the chocolate covered ones as a tree. And you know,
Speaker 1: I just thought mister and missus Edemon must have been
Speaker 1: like the luckiest person in the world because they could
Speaker 1: just snag donuts whenever they wanted. But it turns out
Speaker 1: there actually was an actual mister Entemen and a whole
Speaker 1: family of Entemens. They started with a bakery in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: and then they moved out to Breezy Bay, Shore Long Island,
Speaker 1: and they were kind of a big deal. Like they
Speaker 1: used to sell cakes to franksin Natra. Did you know
Speaker 1: that I did not know this. No, yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: And then eventually they started selling straight to grocery stores
Speaker 1: across the country. But I actually had no idea how
Speaker 1: big their operation was. They ran a fourteen acre pastream
Speaker 1: factory turning out delicious donuts along with crumbcakes and other
Speaker 1: treats that I'm sure everyone knows about. But that's like
Speaker 1: twelve football fields lined up just for delicious doughnuts.
Speaker 2: And that would have been a dream as a kid,
Speaker 2: you know. And I throw in as a kid so
Speaker 2: as not tap to embarrass myself by saying, it's actually
Speaker 2: a dream now to just be able to go stand
Speaker 2: around that many donuts. That's wild, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: But when the longest serving entimen, Charles, died a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago at the healthy age of ninety two,
Speaker 1: do you know what his sun revealed?
Speaker 2: What's that that he.
Speaker 1: Never ate the treats? His son said, he just wasn't
Speaker 1: a dessert guy. Is that insane?
Speaker 2: That is ridiculous and one of the saddest things I've
Speaker 2: ever heard.
Speaker 1: I know, But it's just one of nine facts you
Speaker 1: absolutely have to know about donuts.
Speaker 2: So let's dig in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to
Speaker 2: Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
Speaker 2: joined by my good friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and on
Speaker 2: the other side of the soundproof glass. Oh, this is
Speaker 2: an interesting one, Mango. Dylan has this big sign and
Speaker 2: it says no donut left behind. Yeah, he's looking really
Speaker 2: serious about this, and he's got a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: pastries out on the table. I think he's got some Zeppees,
Speaker 2: some Cruilers, some Munchkins, the whole variety here. I think
Speaker 2: there's actually some Berliners in there. So apparently he wants
Speaker 2: to shed some light on the varieties of donuts without
Speaker 2: holes and give them their due. You know, Dylan is
Speaker 2: just so considerate, he really is. That's our friend and
Speaker 2: producer of course, and Fagan. So, Mango, are you a
Speaker 2: big donut guy? I mean I like donuts. I find
Speaker 2: them delightful with coffee.
Speaker 1: We've got a donut plant nearros so we go out
Speaker 1: to donuts occasionally, but they're not generally something I crave
Speaker 1: these days. You know, when I'm around them, I definitely
Speaker 1: eat too many. But weirdly, my biggest memory with donuts
Speaker 1: is from when I was a kid. Our pediatric dentist
Speaker 1: was right next to a Dunkin Donuts, and every time
Speaker 1: I was done with an appointment, we would go get
Speaker 1: a donut.
Speaker 2: And it just feels so.
Speaker 1: I get a sugar retreat after, you know, take care
Speaker 1: of your teeth and get fluoride on them or whatever.
Speaker 2: That makes me like your parents that much more. Mango,
Speaker 2: that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: And my dentist was also awesome. So like, the whole
Speaker 1: experience was wonderful. But are you a donutut?
Speaker 2: I love donuts, Mango, and I actually you were talking
Speaker 2: about Intemen's earlier. So there's another variety called donuts. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you call them donuts or donuts what
Speaker 2: I'm really sure they come in the little bags. And
Speaker 2: so you know this. There's a g people that I
Speaker 2: get together every year. We go to a different place
Speaker 2: around the country and we make up our own race
Speaker 2: somewhere in the woods. And every year, and I'm not
Speaker 2: making this up, we always bring bags of chocolate and
Speaker 2: white powdered donuts and everybody gets one and you hold
Speaker 2: it up in the air for a photo and then
Speaker 2: you eat it because it gives you that TurboPower to
Speaker 2: run the race. I don't know where the science is
Speaker 2: behind that, but we do that every year. But there's
Speaker 2: a lot of signs behind that, so much science behind
Speaker 2: it. It helps you run super great in the woods. It's
Speaker 2: specifically the woods. A donut helps you run. But anyway,
Speaker 2: we should eventually get into this episode, So why don't
Speaker 2: you start by giving us just a little bit of
Speaker 2: donut background on why we're doing this show on donuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So one of the interesting things about donuts is
Speaker 1: that they're just about every culture in some form, Like
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian says that there are fossils of fried dough
Speaker 1: on ancient indigenous settlements in the Southwest, And of course
Speaker 1: you can still eat like incredibly yummy fried dough and
Speaker 1: fry bread and soapapias from indigenous bakers there today. And
Speaker 1: I don't think you can overstate just how much donuts
Speaker 1: actually tie the world together. At least three of the
Speaker 1: world's major religions have traditions of fried dough for key celebrations,
Speaker 1: including Hanukkah, Ramadan and Bennet's for like Fat Tuesday and Carnival.
Speaker 1: And with over ten billion donuts made in the US
Speaker 1: each year, Americans really can't get enough. So with today's episode,
Speaker 1: we thought, you know, maybe we could bring the whole
Speaker 1: world together with something delicious and celebrate the donuts many
Speaker 1: gifts to modern mankind.
Speaker 2: So what fact do you want to kick off with today?
Speaker 2: I just got chill bumps with you, say, bit, that's
Speaker 2: pretty great. Well, you know my fondness for maritime history,
Speaker 2: so naturally my first fact comes from the sea. So
Speaker 2: without a sailor and a bunch of queasy stomachs at sea,
Speaker 2: we might not have the standard donut shape that we're
Speaker 2: all super familiar with. And it goes back to about
Speaker 2: eighteen forty seven. There was a sailor named Hanson Gregory
Speaker 2: and he was making his way up the maritime corporate ladder.
Speaker 2: He was actually only sixteen years old, which I guess
Speaker 2: at that point that wasn't super young, but still that's impressive. Exactly, So,
Speaker 2: Gregory was working on ships in the lime trade, and
Speaker 2: this was off the coast of his native state of Maine.
Speaker 2: So his mother, like any good mother, would pack donuts
Speaker 2: to see with him. And these aren't just to send
Speaker 2: him like a taste of home, but apparently also as
Speaker 2: a way to word off scurvy.
Speaker 1: Now I don't normally think of donuts as like a
Speaker 1: way to ward off scurvy, So what was special about
Speaker 1: these donuts?
Speaker 2: I did not either, but miss Gregory might have because
Speaker 2: she put lemon rind into her cakes. At that point
Speaker 2: in time, in the early US, donuts were just big
Speaker 2: lumps of dough that were fried in animal fat. Now,
Speaker 2: on the upside, they were supposed to keep well, which
Speaker 2: is why she prepared her spiced and lemon scented cake
Speaker 2: that way. But on the downside, Hanson said that the
Speaker 2: donuts were so greasy. In fact, the donuts would often
Speaker 2: just sort of sit in his fellow sailors tummies and
Speaker 2: it would give them aches and pains and just make
Speaker 2: them pretty uncomfortable. So why is that Well, part of
Speaker 2: the reason is that they often weren't cooked through completely.
Speaker 2: But Gregory had a solution to this. So the way
Speaker 2: he tells it, and this is actually reported in the
Speaker 2: Washington Post back in nineteen sixteen, when Gregory was back
Speaker 2: on land in the town of Quincy, Massachusetts, he took
Speaker 2: a tin cap to a pepper jar and started cutting
Speaker 2: out the oily undercook centers of these donuts. And then
Speaker 2: later on one of his short leaves. He had a
Speaker 2: tinsmith make him this cutter that would help make that
Speaker 2: hole in the center, and he left it with his
Speaker 2: mother to make new donuts with this hole taken out,
Speaker 2: and she started selling them around home and they just
Speaker 2: kind of took off. So fried dough without the greasy center,
Speaker 2: what's not to like about this?
Speaker 1: So, I mean, obviously, like you're taking out this disgusting
Speaker 1: middle part that isn't cooked through, Like, does he end
Speaker 1: up copyriting this ten like, you know, he's improved the
Speaker 1: donut in a major way.
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, it's a really good question. So Hanson actually
Speaker 2: told the Post, I don't suppose Perry could patent the
Speaker 2: North Pole or Columbus could pat in America. Instead, he
Speaker 2: let the world have his delicious innovation. But that didn't
Speaker 2: keep him from bragging about what he brought to the
Speaker 2: table here.
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing he doesn't get a piece of like
Speaker 1: this multi billion dollar donut industry.
Speaker 2: All of which really has him to think, Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: really wild. If he knew what was eventually coming, he
Speaker 2: might have wanted more of a piece of it, but
Speaker 2: he certainly kept the bragging rights, and wildly enough, he
Speaker 2: told the Post that story from a sailor's retirement home
Speaker 2: in Quincy, Massachusetts, which is also the home of the
Speaker 2: original Dunkin Donuts just thirty five years later. Anyway, I
Speaker 2: thought that was pretty interesting. So what he got next
Speaker 2: to mego?
Speaker 1: So the next fact I have is that donuts were
Speaker 1: named in the nineteen thirty four Chicago World's Fair, which
Speaker 1: was referred to as the Century of Progress Fair, and
Speaker 1: they were declared the food hit of the century. Now,
Speaker 1: oddly enough, donuts were supposed to be a vision of
Speaker 1: the future, and the reason kind of goes back to
Speaker 1: the same issue Henson Gregory was trying to solve for.
Speaker 1: So donuts cooked in vats of lard were super, super greasy.
Speaker 1: In fact, the original Dutch name for that kind of
Speaker 1: donut that became really popular in New York and up
Speaker 1: and down the Eastern Seaboard was oily cake, which you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't sound so appetizing.
Speaker 2: It's not great branding.
Speaker 1: But more than that, doughnuts were also really really stinky,
Speaker 1: Like they had this foul smell that theatergoers in New
Speaker 1: York City actually like complained about because these stale oily
Speaker 1: aromas were just waffed through the air. And so there
Speaker 1: was this theater in New York. There's a Russian Jewish
Speaker 1: immigrant named Adolph Levitt, and he was frying up donuts
Speaker 1: the traditional way. But then he comes up with something
Speaker 1: in genius and he invents a way to keep all
Speaker 1: that funk and closed with a donut machine.
Speaker 2: Well that's a brilliant move. So how did he do that?
Speaker 2: Was it maybe a little less hog fat or what? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean that's part of it.
Speaker 1: But it took him from nineteen twenty when he had
Speaker 1: this idea to nineteen thirty one when he debuted this
Speaker 1: spectacular machine in the window of his Mayflower Donuts in Harlem,
Speaker 1: New York. It was the same machine he took to
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty four World Spare and that he sold
Speaker 1: through catalogs to bakeries around the country. The machine used
Speaker 1: forty percent less oil than traditional methods, but even better
Speaker 1: than all of that, he used blowers to get rid
Speaker 1: of the smell, and I enclosed the whole process and
Speaker 1: glass which you kept in the odor. But most importantly,
Speaker 1: donuts became entertainment.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that long ago. So when I think of
Speaker 2: this whole thing, like watching donuts go across the conveyor belt.
Speaker 2: That whole bit. I associate that with Krispy Kreme, like
Speaker 2: my kids used to love going to those stores. In
Speaker 2: two hundreds pro sets the belt that forever and ever.
Speaker 2: Is this the precursor to that?
Speaker 1: Or what?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Totally is.
Speaker 1: So his machine drew crowds to the windows. In fact,
Speaker 1: the New Yorker covered it for Talk of the Town
Speaker 1: and they wrote, quote, doughnuts float dreamily through a grease
Speaker 1: canal and a glass enclosed machine, walk dreamily up a
Speaker 1: moving ramp, and tumble dreamily into an outgoing basket.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: And for all of that dreaminess, it was an efficient machine.
Speaker 1: It actually cranked out twelve hundred doughnuts every hour. And
Speaker 1: that meant that not only could he draw people in
Speaker 1: with the excitement of watching this automated process, which felt
Speaker 1: like watching the future, but he could all also sell
Speaker 1: them fresh. People could get hot doughnuts by the dozens,
Speaker 1: and it no longer bothered neighbors because the problem with
Speaker 1: the smell was completely dealt with. So mister Levitt that
Speaker 1: first year he cleared twenty five million dollars, which is
Speaker 1: about a half billion dollars today. And Levitt's business partner
Speaker 1: made it sound like God's work. He said that the
Speaker 1: machine quote has taken the donut out of the mire
Speaker 1: of prejudice that surrounded the heavy, grease soaked product of
Speaker 1: the old oaken bucket and made it into a light,
Speaker 1: puffy product of a machine. It's so amazing that all
Speaker 1: of this is documented. But one last thing about Levitt
Speaker 1: and his machine. Arthur Levitt was an avowed optimist, and
Speaker 1: all around his Mayflower Donuts he had printed quote, as
Speaker 1: you go through life, make this your goal.
Speaker 2: Wash the donut, not the hole. That's pretty awesome. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what it means, but it has
Speaker 2: no meaning, but it's also pretty great. I love it,
Speaker 2: and I can only imagine that kind of optimism is
Speaker 2: what got Fred the Baker into the donut business. Do
Speaker 2: you remember Fred the Baker? Mango, of course, time to
Speaker 2: make the donuts. Yes, he sounded a little weary and
Speaker 2: didn't sound super optimistic about it, but he's the subject
Speaker 2: of our next fact. So for younger listeners, Fred the
Speaker 2: Baker was an iconic character in the Duncan Donuts ads
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty one all the way up till nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven. So you'd see him clocking at the store
Speaker 2: before dawn, heading back to make the donuts. And the
Speaker 2: whole idea was to show that these donuts were always
Speaker 2: being made fresh right there at Duncan, unlike supermarkets, which
Speaker 2: I guess is where everybody else was buying donuts. Anyway.
Speaker 2: It was played by a character actor and named Michael Vale,
Speaker 2: who had a poor man's Tom Selleck stash about him,
Speaker 2: and the ad campaign was this huge hit. People loved
Speaker 2: Fred the Baker. But after about fifteen years, Duncan was
Speaker 2: ready to move on to a new campaign. Sure, but
Speaker 2: they worried what might happen given just how much everybody
Speaker 2: loved Fred. So Duncan decided to do their due diligence
Speaker 2: and they asked customers what they would think if Fred
Speaker 2: the Baker just kind of stopped showing up in commercials,
Speaker 2: maybe moved off to a farm somewhere. And guess what
Speaker 2: they said. I mean, I'd expect people to argue for
Speaker 2: his job. Almost they actually argued for him to get retirement.
Speaker 2: Apparently they said Fred could leave if he were treated
Speaker 2: like an honored friend and employee. So Duncan Donuts gave
Speaker 2: him a big retirement party including a parade in Boston
Speaker 2: and free donuts to over six million customers on his
Speaker 2: retirement day. This was September twenty second, nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: and it's a sad little coda. Four years later, actor
Speaker 2: Michael Vale actually died about the same exact time that
Speaker 2: Duncan stopped making their donuts in store. No more Fred
Speaker 2: Baker in all the senses. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, I kind of want to see that survey
Speaker 1: because it feels like, you know, if the options are
Speaker 1: Firefred or give him a big retirement party including a parade,
Speaker 1: like of course.
Speaker 2: People are going to choose that. Yeah, yeah, which which
Speaker 2: ones of these would you choose?
Speaker 1: So? Yeah, okay, Well, the s fifth fact is about
Speaker 1: a man named Ted Nagoy and he's actually the reason
Speaker 1: that four out of five donut shops in southern California
Speaker 1: are owned by Cambodian refugees and their families.
Speaker 2: I've actually always thought that was fascinating. So how did
Speaker 2: Cambodians get so involved in US donut culture?
Speaker 1: So Ted came to the US in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: This was with a wave of nearly half a million
Speaker 1: refugees from Cambodia, where at the time the dictator Polpod
Speaker 1: and the Khmer Rouge had taken over, and those immigrants
Speaker 1: by and large came to the US through Camp Pendleton,
Speaker 1: which is south of Orange County.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Ted got a job as a janitor in a
Speaker 1: church in the OC and another job as a gas
Speaker 1: station attendant overnight. And while he was working at this
Speaker 1: gas station, he saw what a great business the donut
Speaker 1: shop next door was. Eventually he was tempted to go
Speaker 1: over to try a donut on one of his breaks,
Speaker 1: and he found out that donuts were not only delicious,
Speaker 1: it actually felt kind of familiar. So numb Kong is
Speaker 1: this treat from Cambodia that was fried dough made in
Speaker 1: a ring shape, you know, just like donuts, except numb
Speaker 1: kong were made out of rice flour. And he really
Speaker 1: loved these donuts. He became a regular and he thought
Speaker 1: about selling them himself. So he asked a woman at
Speaker 1: the counter, was there any hope for him to own
Speaker 1: a shop like this, and they actually suggested he applied
Speaker 1: to the management program for their donut chain, which was Winchel's. Now,
Speaker 1: he convinced the pastor at his church where he was
Speaker 1: janitor to sponsor him, and the pastor obliged, and he
Speaker 1: became the first Southeast Asian to go through this program. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, he made a big change when he started
Speaker 1: managing his own shop. He put his wife, Sangatini and
Speaker 1: his kids to work. He barely slept. But you know,
Speaker 1: in actually not that long, he had enough to buy
Speaker 1: a local donut shop called Christie's. Now, what's interesting about
Speaker 1: Ted is he didn't change the name or the donuts
Speaker 1: they sold. He just made them around the clock, like
Speaker 1: these really fresh and really tasty donuts. Thanks to his
Speaker 1: and his family's tirelessness, within a year, he bought three
Speaker 1: more shops. By nineteen eighty, just five years after arriving
Speaker 1: in the US, he owned twenty shops, and even crazier,
Speaker 1: he didn't change the names in any way or show
Speaker 1: that they were connected. He really wasn't building a brand.
Speaker 1: He was just keeping these mom and pop donut shops going.
Speaker 1: And as he went he brought his community with him.
Speaker 1: So workers, managers, shop owners themselves all came from his
Speaker 1: friends and family, and in fact, my friend Vana's family
Speaker 1: had a shop around that area too. But in addition
Speaker 1: to the reason why, like Cambodians owned donut shops in
Speaker 1: southern California. He's also responsible for why donut shops use
Speaker 1: pink boxes.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so why is that?
Speaker 1: So? When Ted was sourcing boxes for his donut shops,
Speaker 1: he experienced, you know, serious sticker shock when he was
Speaker 1: looking at the white boxes that bakeries were using, and
Speaker 1: he asked like, did they have anything cheaper? And apparently
Speaker 1: there was a bunch of leftover pink card stock from
Speaker 1: this other client. It was much much cheaper. Also, it
Speaker 1: was kind of reminiscent of the color red, which is
Speaker 1: so important to Asian cultures and businesses and particularly ethnically
Speaker 1: Chinese people like his own. Anyway, before four long, donut
Speaker 1: shops around the country had picked up on this iconic
Speaker 1: box color. And you look at things like Voodoo Donuts
Speaker 1: today from Portland, their logo and boxes are pink. And
Speaker 1: it's all thanks to this money saving venture from this
Speaker 1: immigrant on the hustle. Actually, though, there's one last fact.
Speaker 1: When Ted's wife, Sangatini, became a US citizen, she actually
Speaker 1: took the name Christie's after their first thoughbut shop.
Speaker 2: So pretty sweet. That is a great story, all right, Well,
Speaker 2: here's one thing that always bugged me. So you know
Speaker 2: that famous speech by JFK at the Berlin Wall was
Speaker 2: back in nineteen sixty three, and he says, I beIN
Speaker 2: ein Berliner, right, And it's supposed to be this really
Speaker 2: stirring moment where he's expressing solidarity with the people of
Speaker 2: Berlin who now have a big wall between the Communists
Speaker 2: and the Democratic sides. But then everyone there laughed at
Speaker 2: it because in Germany that doesn't mean I'm a citizen
Speaker 2: of Berlin. It means I am a jelly donut. Not
Speaker 2: quite so stirring here, And as people know, there was
Speaker 2: a bit of laughter in the audience, but the laughter
Speaker 2: actually wasn't immediate. It came a minute later when Kennedy said,
Speaker 2: I appreciate my interpreter translating my German.
Speaker 1: So clearly people there didn't take the Berliner line as
Speaker 1: a joke. They were actually laughing at this later comment
Speaker 1: by Kennedy. So how do we get the story about
Speaker 1: the jelly donut.
Speaker 2: Well, if you order a Berliner at a bakery and
Speaker 2: the rest of Germany, you will get a jelly donut.
Speaker 2: But Berliners themselves don't call jelly donuts after themselves they
Speaker 2: call them fan Kuchen. Now, the story actually originates with
Speaker 2: a British novelist, Lynn Dayton, who wrote a book with
Speaker 2: an unreliable narrator who claims that ik ben ein Berliner
Speaker 2: was a joke and that German cartoonist had a field
Speaker 2: day with the gaff the next day, but none of
Speaker 2: that was actually true. It was part of his fictional
Speaker 2: character's unreliability. So the New York Times repeated the story
Speaker 2: in their review, and then it got repeated in American
Speaker 2: publications for years and years. But with the advent of Wikipedia,
Speaker 2: the Germans finally put the myth to rest. So in
Speaker 2: the German Wikipedia entry about the speech, it has a
Speaker 2: heading labeled quote misconception of the English World. So anyway,
Speaker 2: it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I feel like you hear that joke everywhere,
Speaker 1: from like Eddie Izard to you know, mention that it's
Speaker 1: just repeated. But uh, that's funny that that's a total misconception.
Speaker 1: I actually have a great fact I can't wait to
Speaker 1: tell you, but we've got to hit up some ads first,
Speaker 1: so don't touch that dial.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part time Genius. We're talking about one
Speaker 2: of our favorite topics donuts? All right, mango, what do
Speaker 2: you have next? Well?
Speaker 1: Did you know that the phrase dollars to donuts like
Speaker 1: I bet dollars to donuts before donuts was dollars to buttons,
Speaker 1: which is just.
Speaker 2: Such a super scus fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, dollars to doughnuts also makes no sense, but
Speaker 1: dollars buttons just sounds weaker. So I want to go
Speaker 1: the fact in, but I actually have it. Another fact,
Speaker 1: and is that did you know that dunking your donuts
Speaker 1: in coffee is officially considered bad manners?
Speaker 2: I did not know this.
Speaker 1: I did not know this, And cops all over the
Speaker 1: country are being problematic to people like Emily Post who
Speaker 1: wrote this about them in nineteen forty one. So apparently,
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one, the Campfire Girls did this annual
Speaker 1: fundraiser that was a donut drive, and I'm guessing the
Speaker 1: girl Scouts had the market cornered on cookies. And anyway,
Speaker 1: some young enterprising Campfire Girls wrote to Emily Post column
Speaker 1: to get her endorsement of dunking donuts and coffee, and
Speaker 1: she flat out refused, like she would not endorse it.
Speaker 1: She wrote that as much as she would like to agree,
Speaker 1: with such an upstanding group of young people. Quote, dipping
Speaker 1: a great round object into a coffee or teacup and
Speaker 1: then biting into the sopping object is about as bad
Speaker 1: an example of table behavior as could be found. But
Speaker 1: she did suggest a workaround.
Speaker 2: That will work. Emily Post always coming up with a solution.
Speaker 2: So what was it?
Speaker 1: So she says, you can break off a piece of
Speaker 1: your donut, drop it into your coffee, and use a
Speaker 1: spoon to scoop it out and eat it, and somehow
Speaker 1: this is better. It does not sound better to be
Speaker 1: like trying to fish out tiny pieces of donut from
Speaker 1: your coffee with a spoon.
Speaker 2: That sounds terrible. Plus the coffee.
Speaker 1: Gets all crumbly it anyway, I have a hard disagree
Speaker 1: with this one. The founder of Dunkin Donuts, Bill Rosenberg,
Speaker 1: actually tried to solve it as well, except he tried
Speaker 1: a different thing. He invented a dunker, which was a
Speaker 1: regular cake donut, but it had a handle coming off
Speaker 1: the ring. Do you remember these donuts?
Speaker 2: I don't know that I do. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: They were like misshaped donuts that you would dunk, but
Speaker 1: apparently dunk and sold Dunkers at the chain for years,
Speaker 1: but they had to be cut by hand, and everyone
Speaker 1: agreed that they didn't really make the dunking any easier,
Speaker 1: and so they discontinued it in two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: All gone, Yeah, so will what do you have for
Speaker 1: your last facts?
Speaker 2: All right, mango? Have you ever heard the term dough
Speaker 2: boys for soldiers? Yeah, definitely, but I don't really know
Speaker 2: what it means. Well, the term started in the American
Speaker 2: Civil War, and there was actually some debate, but it
Speaker 2: was about how buttons on the soldiers' uniforms looked like
Speaker 2: flower dumplings, or perhaps that the soldiers polished their metal
Speaker 2: with flour. But there's another reason to call them dough boys.
Speaker 2: During the Civil War, volunteers made massive batches of donuts
Speaker 2: to serve to the troops, and this was a tradition
Speaker 2: that continued into World War One, actually on into World
Speaker 2: War Two. And like we talked about earlier that sailor
Speaker 2: Hanson Gregory had just invented the ring shaped donut and
Speaker 2: created the ten cutter. This was something that had become
Speaker 2: available widely and it was used pretty frequently during the
Speaker 2: Civil War. Then in World War One, the Salvation Army
Speaker 2: actually sent volunteers to France near the stalemated front lines there,
Speaker 2: and they would make these hot, fresh donuts for the
Speaker 2: young people serving there to remind them of home.
Speaker 1: It's so weird that like there are facts like this
Speaker 1: that we don't know, you know, Like it feels like,
Speaker 1: after all these years, I would have heard this. But
Speaker 1: also I feel like I don't really think of donuts as.
Speaker 2: A very American thing. They just feel like, yeah, from
Speaker 2: around the world, I know, you know. I'm sure they
Speaker 2: were just happy for something fresh and delicious to eat.
Speaker 2: But it became this huge hit, and the Salvation Army
Speaker 2: started to hold these annual fundraisers for veterans. They would
Speaker 2: call them Donut Day to commemorate the donut lasses or
Speaker 2: women who sailed to the front lines there, and they'd
Speaker 2: make them hand out donuts. The Salvation Army sold these
Speaker 2: treats as fundraisers and even had eating contests and other
Speaker 2: stunts to drum up interests and of course more revenue.
Speaker 2: So the Washington Post reported on this in nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: It was about a donut race being held by the
Speaker 2: Ellipse just south of the White House with this gigantic
Speaker 2: sixty eight pound four foot donuts. Now, Donut Day is
Speaker 2: still celebrated to this day on the first Friday in June.
Speaker 1: I feel like we need to make celebrating Donut Day
Speaker 1: more of a tradition here, definitely. So here's my last
Speaker 1: fact which kind of blows my mind. Astrophysicists at the
Speaker 1: University of Leone in France examined images from the earliest
Speaker 1: times of the universe, and in twenty twenty one they
Speaker 1: surmise that our universe is just one giant donut.
Speaker 2: That's some real science yet again, but actually I have
Speaker 2: no idea what that means.
Speaker 1: Mango. Yeah, so it's obviously not that it's made of
Speaker 1: flower and fat and yeast. What we're talking about is
Speaker 1: the shape, and the idea is that the universe is
Speaker 1: closed in all three dimensions and shaped like a three
Speaker 1: D donut of truly cosmic but not infinite size. This
Speaker 1: theory posits that the universe is finite, with the entire
Speaker 1: cosmos being only three or four times what we can
Speaker 1: observe now. Astronomers agree that the universe is still flat,
Speaker 1: meaning that parallel line state parallel in perpetuity. But while
Speaker 1: we know as geometry, what these scientists are positing is
Speaker 1: a different topology where the spatial relationships separate from shapes.
Speaker 1: It's suggesting that our universe might be multiply connected, and
Speaker 1: dimensions of our universe will connect back to each other. Now,
Speaker 1: I know this sounds super confusing, but the astrophysicist Paul
Speaker 1: Cutter actually explained it really well in an article on
Speaker 1: life science, and this is what he said. If you
Speaker 1: take a flat piece of paper, clearly parallel lines remain parallel.
Speaker 1: Now you roll it into a cylinder. Still, all parallel
Speaker 1: lines remain parallel, not diverging or connected. But now curl
Speaker 1: the ends of the cylinder around to connect them. You
Speaker 1: have a donut shape. The parallel lines still don't diverge
Speaker 1: or connect, but the lines are no longer infinite, and
Speaker 1: knowing this can help us measure the full size of
Speaker 1: the universe. It also means that while technically you could
Speaker 1: travel in one direction and wind up back where you begin,
Speaker 1: you can't really do that. Like, the universe is constantly expanding,
Speaker 1: often faster than the speed of light, so you can
Speaker 1: never really catch up to yourself.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to have to take your word for
Speaker 2: it on this one. That is fascinating but also pretty
Speaker 2: complicated and in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, donuts
Speaker 2: is there anything they can't do? You know? Also, I
Speaker 2: really love the fact that I should be dunking my
Speaker 2: donuts and pieces with a spoon. So I think we're
Speaker 2: gonna have to give you the trophy for that one, Mango.
Speaker 1: I know it feels so disgusting, and I love that
Speaker 1: so proper, and I love that I'm going to be
Speaker 1: a diner's just correcting people from now on. But I
Speaker 1: will take the trophy. That is it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: Remember if you've got donut facts to share, drop us
Speaker 1: a line on our Instagram at Part Time Genius, or
Speaker 1: you can always email our moms at Petgenius moms at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. Now from Gabe, Dylan, Marywill and myself,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. And I also have
Speaker 1: to shout out to my wife Lizzie Jacobs, who research
Speaker 1: and wrote for this episode. Lizzie is particularly good at
Speaker 1: taking us on wrong turns on vacations that somehow accidentally
Speaker 1: find donut shops. Love it, and it happens so much
Speaker 1: that all of us think it's no longer a coincidence anyway.
Speaker 1: That is it for this week's Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listen.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: This show is hosted by.
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and me Mongaige Heatikler and research by our
Speaker 1: good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
Speaker 1: produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.