Talk:Cruller

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I've heard the Cruller is the only donut made with egg. True?

Not likely. Maybe at a really penny pinching donut shop, or if you're visiting a mostly vegan donut place or something like that. Whitebox (talk) 16:37, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

German Easter connection

Last year I taught my 2nd grade class about various Easter traditions. I had to do a lot of research to find out about them and discovered a book which explained that the cruller originated in Germany (and Dutch is a Germanic language) and was eaten before lent as a way to use up fat, in preparation for fasting during lent. I've also found reference to this on a number of websites including:

• http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~maggieoh/Holidays/E/eindex.html (refers to it as a German and Austrian tradition)
• http://www.phancypages.com/newsletter/ZNewsletter2599.htm (Austrian tradition)
• http://www.indobase.com/holidays/easter/easter-traditions-around-the-world/easter-in-germany.html (German tradition)
• http://www.easterbunnys.net/germaneaster.htm (German tradition)
• http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~homespun/days.html (German and Austrian)
• http://usinfo.org/facts/holiday/hd5.htm (German)

I think this should therefore be included in the article Tinkstar1985 14:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Regional difference? Growing up in Wisconsin, what you picture was called a "French Donut". Crullers were what is pictured here: http://www.gojefferson.com/banner/opinion/foust/cruller/index.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.159.160.51 (talk) 17:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, in New England it's definitely the STRAIGHT version.

In fact, the "twisting" isn't even important; if it's ROUND, it's a DONUT; if it's STRAIGHT, it's a CRULLER.

Same as Wisconsin, I guess. Like "bubblers" ;)

66.3.106.3 (talk) 04:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The pictures in this article show two entirely different pastries. I would suggest separating out the text referring to the diamond shape based pastries from the extruder donut shaped ones and others. All deep fried pastries can be lumped under "Krapfen" in modern German. But that would then include donuts and jelly filled donuts, as well as other shapes made from various kinds of doughs. Including the twisted diamond shaped pastries under this designation is a bit problematic since the expression "Krapfen" has a Southern origin, according to Grimm, Reihnisch, but definitely not Plattdeutsch whereas the twisted diamond pastries are decidedly Northern. Germany, although not very big geographically includes a plethora of varied cultures, all with their own traditions. Lumping everything together as "German" isn't very helpful in this case. Then tossing in neighboring countries just thickens the broth. I don't know who claimed the Dutch and Danish expressions were derived from Low German, but this seems to very likely be someone's theory shaped to fit the result. The area close to the Danish border that speaks Low German doesn't call those pastries "kleener" (little one} which is the closest Low German word to the Danish and Swedish names. Danish sources are assumptions based on the lack of established histories and explicitly state that the true origin is lost.

Northern Germany has a rich pagan history, which does include the pastries discussed here. With the introduction of Catholicism those pastries likely migrated south and were adapted to suit the catholic calendar. In the North they are a winter tradition. In some northern countries they were moved to Christmas, in others to New Year's Eve. But that's a new tradition. They are definitely not baked around Easter/lent in the North. In modern South Germany the "Hirschhörner" shape was changed from the original twisted diamond, since by then the hartshorn salt or Hirschhornsalz leavening agent had been substituted by baking soda. People wanted their pasties to look more like elk antlers, since the connection with the original name had gotten lost there and Hirsh is an elk in German. Southern German recipes as far back as the early nineteenhundreds for Hirschhörner are missing both the baker's ammonia and the twisted diamond shape.

South Germans do make "Krapfen" pastries boiled in hot fat or lard for lent and have traditionally done so, but those are both made from a different doughs and have a different shape than the North German twisted diamond pastries described above. The French Doughnut versions are more modern from the seventeenhundreds and are called "Spritzkuchen" in German. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spritzkuchen More traditional kinds of Southern lent "Krapfen" would be Mutzenmandeln which are shaped with a teaspoon and baked in hot grease or oil, Faschingskrapfen which are ball shaped and usually a yeast dough in modern times jelly filled donuts without a hole, Schmalzgreben another yeast dough pastry more or less cube shaped and various local versions.

I neither want to blow up the article nor cut out the text that lumps various pastries into descriptions that only apply to one. Please edit the article to separate out the various pastry types.2602:306:30BA:28A0:4866:3FEF:81E4:2ABB (talk) 14:26, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

The Wizard Of OZ (1939 movie)

In the opening of the 1939 film The Wizard of OZ, after Dorthy falls in the pig pen & Aunt Em comes up, she offers the farm hands Crullers, but they seem more like what we today would call chicken tenders, not whats described here. Does anyone know the difference?

The Popular Culture of the Cruller Outshines the Cruller Itself

You people should be ashamed for deleting a very, very rich popular culture section. It may have been weakly sourced, but Jesus, it is a snack that isn't going to sue you or start a flame war.

Now the article is a bunch of babble about Europeans. Nice.--208.127.100.74 (talk) 08:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Versions and references

What's the difference between a cruller and a French cruller? The links to the references on this page need to be fixed.

ICE77 (talk) 05:24, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What I've gathered so far is that the cruller is a rectangular donut with a cut in the middle that allowed the sides to be twisted before frying. A "French" cruller is a donut with the common or typical round shape, but it has sort of ridges from being pushed out of a nozzle, and it's made with a dough like cream puffs are, instead of a typical donut dough. Whitebox (talk) 04:05, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Alternate Spelling

I have often seen the alternate spelling "Crueller," yet it is not mentioned in this article. 70.192.13.62 (talk) 06:14, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

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Language Confusion

This article suffers heavily from being written from a US perspective (which it should be, imo) without that being made clear.

The spelling of the name cruller certainly looks like it was derived from Dutch or (Saxon) Low German (which would indicate a Pennsylvania Dutch connection), but the pastry itself appears to be most similar to the Scandinavian versions in shape, recipe and manufacture. I can't find a single reference in any Dutch dictionary or source about a pastry called a krulle (actual spelling in main ref Boston Herald) or krullen (unreferenced spelling in the article). According to Dutch wikipedia there is a local soft white bread bun with a knot in it stemming from the 1860s in a small 10km region in Brabant, eaten once a year, called a krol in the local dialect, but this appears to be a very rare baked good, as there are few sources for it.

It is not made clear that a 'French cruller' is a relatively recently invented/coined American pastry with extruded dough most similar to the German spritzkuchen in form, or in lesser degree a Spanish churro or Italian zeppole. Some Turkish lokma types (which have a much more ancient history) and Pakistani jalebi are also very similar. Although also using choux dough it is unlike a traditional French beignet. The word beignet is also confused, the French wikipedia page on 'donut' claims that although in France an American-style 'donut' is called a donut or sometimes a beignet sucré, a 'donut' is called a beigne in the French of Quebec or a beignet in Cajun. The Dutch sprits is inspired from the German spritzkuchen but although the dough is extruded it is a baked cookie not a deep fried dough.

The information on Wikipedia about the Scandinavian klenät/klejner, which appear to be the most likely origin for the modern American pastry, is also confused/untrustworthy. The English article claims it has existed since the 1400s, but provides no good source for this. The earliest mention of the word appears to be in a Swedish poem about a feast from 1800, although it is unclear if this actually refers to the same recipe. The Danish article says that the pastries and the tradition of serving them at Christmas starting becoming popular there around the 1850s, and the Swedish article says only in the 1900s did the modern twisted form become standard, although the Swedish article makes clear other deep fried doughs were eaten in Sweden already in the 1500s, inspired from Italian/Venetian recipes. All the articles claim that the etymology of the names klenät/klejner hint at a Low German origin.

The statement in the lede referenced to a recent Boston Herald article about Dunkin Donuts claiming that the 'cruller' was already being eaten during the pilgrims' day appears very suspect, if the northern European recipes only became popular in the 19th century, and the word has a Dutch or related origin. It would seem there would be a much better source for something like the foods served by the pilgrims.

Yesterday I changed the text regarding Mrs. Anna R. Bradbury's theory regarding the etymology. Speaking Dutch myself, her claim about pronunciation looks silly. Also how would she ever know in 1909 that a military guy in 1617 invented a certain recipe when her main 1800s source doesn't mention it? She doesn't appear to be an expert in anything and was not born nor lived most her life in the region, although it would appear she much liked the town of Hudson. Searching for a local eponym to an apparently popular foodstuff in the region at the time looks much like folk etymology.

Basically there appear to be two (or more) origin stories in this article; that the pastry was adopted in the USA from Low German or Scandinavian traditions in the late 1800s and somehow gained a Low German name, or that the origin of the pastry was North America in the 1600s and somehow gained a Dutch/Low German name and that a few centuries later an almost identical pastry was adopted in Scandinavia with a Low German name. 86.83.56.115 (talk) 13:15, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Being bold and removing the stuff on unrelated Scottish cake, but leaving it here

Conflating an round, baked, oat-barley, unleavened (?) cake (crül) from 19th century Shetland with the twisted, deep-fried, wheat-based, leavened doughnut popular in the USA because of purported similar etymological roots from proto-Germanic is like saying a dress is a type of rope because the Spanish word ropa has the same etymological root -this is a false friend. I'm leaving the text here in case anyone wants to move it to bannock which is the more common Scots name for such a cake. The theory by a wikipedia editor that the Aberdeen crulla which seems to be attested at an earlier date than the crül (glossed as crule) is derived from that word is conjecture/original research, as it is not in the references given. According to the Scottish National Dictionary the Aberdeen crulla is a doughnut probably derived from the US 'cruller' and is attested since 1829. The same dictionary (the source in the text below) has crül attested first from 1866 (in 'Glossary of the Dialect of Shetland and Orkney') in the sense that it is simple barley meal mixed with cold water, eaten cold and raw with butter (sounds gross!). In this sense it was used till at least 1932 (as krül). Note that language spoken at the time in the Shetland islands is not Scots or Gaelic but Norn. The baked cake crül or krül is also first attested in Shetland in 1866 and appears slightly more often, although it died out earlier (books from 1888 & 1899, Norn-Danish Etymological Dictionary of 1908). The word does not appear attested from the Orkney Islands (where Norn was also spoken), nor the mainland (where Norn had been replaced by Gaelic centuries earlier). It would seem to be somewhat similar to what in the southern US is called 'biscuit' (not in English (='cookie' for Americans) or Scottish sense (='soft bun' for Americans)), although with different ingredients and not sweet or leavened or with shortening.

One derivation of the name is from the Norn crül, a small cake or bannock, which may in turn derive from the Danish or Norwegian for "curl" (krøll in Danish and Norwegian (Nynorsk spelling)) or the Norwegian for "hump" (hump in Norwegian).

References

Proposed merge of Spritzkuchen into Cruller

Spritzkuchen is the German name for cruller Spudlace (talk) 23:06, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 21:49, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Angel wings into Cruller

This article is almost entire without references for over 10 years and according to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America this is an alternate name for crullers Spudlace (talk) 05:39, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't see much resemblance between the two. Angel wings (and all their European varieties) are made with dense dough and are crispy. Crullers seem to be airy, like doughnuts. Ponor (talk) 14:42, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I've changed my mind about this nomination, they don't look very similar. The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink lists "Angel Wings" as a synonym for Crullers but it may be US-centric where it's a translation. Something like "Csoroge" are also known as "Hungarian crullers" in the US. I think it's ok to close this. Spudlace (talk) 22:13, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

• Object. The pictures look rather different. Being a Pole I know faworki (interwikid from angel wings) and they look quite different from this 'culler'. I concur that the Oxford source is likely US-centric. There may be some issues with interwikis, but overallI think we are dealing with (at least) two different pastries. I'll remove the merge proposal since nobody supported it and the nominator withdrew it anyway. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:29, 26 January 2021 (UTC)