Take your choice, but it is now 80 years old. Without rings, they were once called doughboys, but their origins are lost in history’s murky depths.
The story I heard is that doughboys were ship’s specialties. Ship’s cooks made them into rings to make them float in the grease. I do know that towboat cooks on the rivers still handmake them.
Another story is that Joe LeBeau came from New Orleans. He lived in Louisville, Kentucky but was a towboat cook. He retired to Paducah, Kentucky and started a doughnut shop during the depression. Hard times led him to sell his secret recipe to Krispy Kreme. The rest is—burp—history.
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