Doughnuts or donuts; olykoeks or oily cakes — there are as many names for the delicious pastry as there are ways to make them. Fossils of doughnut-like foods have been unearthed in prehistoric America, and remained in the land in some form right up until they were introduced to the Dutch settlers. The Dutch merged the new foodstuff with their own traditional recipes, calling the new creation olykoeks. The “doghnut” by its name came from New England captain Hanson Crockett Gregory, who took his mother Elizabeth Gregory’s very fine oylecake on his long voyages. For various possible reasons the center of the pastry was hollowed out, and so was born a tradition.

On this day, June 22, in 1847, Captain Gregory published his account in the Boston Post, claiming credit for “the first dough-nut hole ever seen by mortal eyes.”

There are at least two legends how the “dough-nut” came to have its name. One of that Mother Gregory baked in some hazelnuts into the center of her cake (which Captain Gregory either did not like and poked out, or took out when he had to impale the doughnuts over the ship’s steering wheel because he was having trouble eating and steering at the same time.) Or perhaps her recipe simply included instruction to boil little “nuts” of “dough.”