A Brief History of the Fried Dough from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Day Special Sweets

As long as there has been food, past the age of foraging and hunting, agriculture made it easy for man to tame wild grains and farm them for food. Wheat was one of them and once fire and smithing came in, wheat began to take shape and someone had the genius idea of cooking dough, which ultimately produced some of the special sweets and desserts we know today. While cooked or baked dough’s ancestors didn’t have sugar, it sure did have the same freshness and delicious taste of the bread it does today. Frying also came in much later when some ooga booga ancestor of ours decided to harness oils from plant sources or animal fats and cook dough. So, what exactly is its history and where was the world’s first fried dough made?

The History

Turns out humans were past the ooga booga stage of Neanderthals and settled into the cosy nook of the riverside which we today know as the Mesopotamian civilization. Somewhere around the 2000 BCE some genius really cooked and was thus born the world's first fried dough. This area today corroborates to modern-day Israel, which also covers the contested Palestine territory (Israel occupied West Bank, Gaza as per Palestine), Jordan and a part of Syria and Lebanon.

True to our monkey genes, man didn't stay put for long and some set out to greener pastures which is how this knowledge or skill travelled to the Iberian Peninsula, Arabia and Europe. Not just fried dough, once you discover something and it tastes good, you will tend to experiment, so they fried fish next, caught fresh from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This happened around the 1200s which today are modern day Spain and Portugal. In the 100 years leading to the 1300s, this practice spread to most of Northern Europe too. Middle eastern countries by now started frying chickpea batter and the earliest forms of falafel were starting to emerge out of Egypt.

To the Land of the Rising Sun

The Portuguese known for their seafaring ways, met the Japanese around the 1500s and shared their fondness of the deep fried fish with them and thus was born tempura. Moving away from fish, it was possibly the Belgians who decide to try potatoes next to make French Fries. Of course back then they were called something else. This happened around the 1700 and it is hard to say if it was France that did this because both countries have French speaking people. The next natural progression happened via the Brits who put together Fish and Chips

The Moden World

Did you know cast iron skillet was a rage in the colonies of the US? Back then the cast iron skillet looked like a tripod with three legs to stand over a naked flame, and were aptly called the spider. The legs slowly disappeared with the invention of stoves. Dough uses to be deep fried and even cakes were made in these skillets. The Dutch were the ones who brought in the deep fried dough knowledge to this country; this was around the 1800s. The first of their kind fried food emerged from there and doughnuts were born as a result. There was no looking back from there as the popularity of fried dough extended to meat, veggies and more and started becoming commercial. How about a recipe of fried dough to commemorate the history of this simple dessert that is an ancient knowledge carried to modern day?

Sweet Fried Dough Recipe

Ingredients

• 250 gm all-purpose flour
• 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
• ⅔ tsp salt
• 1½ tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 60 gm melted butter
• 160 ml milk
• Oil (frying)
• Powdered sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

1. Take a mixing bowl and add the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar and mix.
2. To the bowl add the melted butter (microwave it for a few seconds to melt), milk and vanilla extract. Mix well to form a dough. Knead the dough well until it's nice and soft and isn't sticky or too dry.
3. Flour a surface and roll out each to ½ inch thickness.
4. Take a deep pan and deep fry each of the rolled dough individually on high flame.
5. Cook for a minute, flip and cook for another minute and transfer to a plate.
6. Top with the powdered sugar or honey or cinnamon sugar.