Thanksgiving Feed - Spudnuts (1950)

Back in 2013 I ran a blog post about the noble Spudnut. Back then I focused on the "everything new is old again" of an alternate doughnut shaking up the beats of cops across the nation. So, this ad isn't really new. It's just odd because it was placed sideways in what I'm sure the advertisers thought was "innovative and groundbreaking."

Yep, this is the way the ad ran. March 6, 1950 issue of Life Magazine ran this ad for Spudnuts, the potato mutant child of a doughnut and a french fry. Actually, I shouldn't speak ill of them since I've never tried one. It's just the idea - I mean to me potatoes have always been the sidekick to a burger or a steak, not a cup of coffee. So, a passing fad, right? I mean, nothing this patently weird could actually last, could it? Well, yes.

The parent company that ran this ad offering franchises to savvy tater-oh fryers back in 1950 may have gone under, but a few hard core buds off the original vine are still in existence. For instance, one in Charlottesville, VA, a comfy looking hole in the wall. In fact there's a site dedicated to the remaining Spudnuts across the country.

Not exactly sure what the bikini-clad girl has to do with potato doughnuts, but there she is none the less.

Spudnuts!

In these days of cronuts, I wanted to introduce you to the first alternative dough - the potato. Spudnuts are exactly what they sound like – spud-based doughnuts. As usual once I stopped laughing, I started researching and found that the doughnut made from potatoes has more than a little history. 

In typical American fashion, Al and Bob Pelton built a business on reinventing something that already existed. They had encountered potato-based doughnuts while in Germany and came home to America with the idea of making the odd little cakes marketable (and themselves rich).  They ran through several formulations before finally coming up with a dry potato mix that let them franchise the Spudnut concept and they went into business in 1940. By 1946 Spudnuts had gone nationwide and by 1952 the Peltons were featured on the cover of the now defunct Mechanix Illustrated.

The Pelton brothers eventually retired, selling Spudnut Industries Inc. and it was eventually bought by Dakota Bake-N-Serv. Within a year of the purchase even the potato mascot of the old Spudnut days had retired but the company seemed to have a bright future – that is until the new ownership wasted the company's funds on shaky land deals and drove it into the ground.

Unlike so many brands of the past, though, Spudnuts persist. According to Google Maps you can satisfy your spud craving at the Spudnut Shop in Richland, WA. If you happen to stop in, please let me know about the experience. I'm intrigued, but about two thousand miles too far away to make the trip!

By the way, if you're interested in making your own Spudnuts, the three recipes below come from The Book of a Thousand Recipes (1912). Supposedly the Peltons revised the recipe quite a bit in their quest for a marketable Spudnut, but they were after a dry mix that could be used to easily and quickly supply a doughnut shop. These more traditional versions lack the detail we've come to expect from our modern cookbooks, but they should put you on the path to glazed bliss.