National Donut Day will be celebrated on June 3, 2016.
How did the National Doughnut Day tradition begin? National Doughnut Day is celebrated every year on the first Friday of June to honor the women who served donuts to soldiers during WWI.
Lexington typically commemorates the occasion with long lines along the central Kentucky Donut Trail from Spalding’s on Winchester Road to the North Lime donut domination corridor at North Lime Coffee and Donuts.
Every few summers, Ace hosts a Donut War on National Donut Day, and long before Serious Eats gave them a taste, Spalding’s was a multiple title winner in the annual Ace Best of Lexington readers’ poll.
In a brazen (brazen we say!) attempt at SEO baiting, Serious Eats’ URL on the subject reads “Lexington KY crunchy lard fried donuts from Spalding’s.” (So, great, now THAT’s taken.) Their report did acknowledge that Spalding’s donuts are currently fried in soybean oil…which practically makes them a health food.)
As Rob Bricken put it in his searing 1999 Ace donut coverstory investigation, the quest for the Hole-y grail,
“In a sense, doughnuts are all filled—with democracy. All the people, all the bakers, all the eaters, all the doughnuts—our diversity is our strength. With all our unique skills and ideas and flavors, we can do anything. But if we squabble over party politics, or age or gender, or topping, nothing gets accomplished. And no one gets to eat.
Together in a tightly-packed dozen we stand, but divided we fall. When JFK took his trip to Germany and said, ‘Ich bein ein Berliner,’ he thought he was saying, ‘I am a citizen of Berlin.’ In fact what he said was ‘I am a doughnut,’ because a Berliner is a type of doughnut.Many people have thought this was a social gaffe, but now, I’m not so sure. I think JFK was a doughnut, like we’re all doughnuts. In this light, I’d like to end with a little song:
You may say I’m a doughnut
but I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll eat us
And the world will live as one.”
Might we also use National Donut Day to recommend Jonathan Lundy’s Spalding Donut Bread Pudding? He graciously allowed us to excerpt his recipe when his book, Jonathan’s Bluegrass Table, hit stands in 2009. (It’s on page 206.)
Cheers!
Subscribe to the Ace e-dition for Lexington news, arts, culture, and entertainment, delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning.
To submit a Lexington, Kentucky food, wine, or spirits news item for consideration in Ace’s Best Bites, email acelist at aceweekly.com. To 
submit a Lexington Food, Wine, or Spirits Event to be considered for the Ace calendar, please go to the Ace online calendar, and click “Submit” (upper right on the Menu bar). Turn to Ace every week for Ace Eats Out, the latest in Lexington restaurant news. For Lexington restaurant advertising, call Ace Advertising at 859.225.4889 x229.
