Martha and Grant revisit a listener term for a particular doughnut, known as a “Bismark,” and share other listener mail about the “Bismarks” where they reside. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Bismark Doughnuts”
Hey, Grant, you remember our conversation a while back about Bismarck’s?
Mmm, Bismarck’s.
Yes, indeed.
A caller said he grew up in Illinois, and he referred to a kind of jelly donuts as Bismarck’s, right?
Right.
And then he said, and this was the cool part, he said when he went to California, they didn’t know what he was talking about.
Exactly.
And that discussion brought back a lot of sweet memories for our listeners.
But it also confirmed the fact that one food name can mean a whole lot of different things depending on where you are, and we learned that from all the email we got.
A listener named James wrote to say that he grew up in a part of Alabama that was settled by German immigrants.
And he says the local German bakery there makes a Bismarck that’s about five inches long and fried like a regular donut.
And he says it’s filled with custard and cream filling, not unlike a Boston cream pie.
But Brian wrote to say that the Bismarcks that he knew growing up in Minnesota were filled with custard cream.
And he writes, I was really disappointed recently when I ordered a Bismarck near my in-law’s house on the Long Beach Peninsula of Washington, and it was filled with Jell-O pudding.
Gross.
Yeah, he wrote, blah!
And finally, a listener named Leachie wrote from Salem, Massachusetts, to tell us about a local bakery that’s famous for what it calls real cream Bismarcks.
Litchie writes that these Bismarcks are also long, like the other ones, but split along the top, filled with jelly, topped with whipped cream, and then dusted with powdered sugar.
And Litchie continues, I couldn’t stop thinking about Bismarcks after listening to your podcast, and as soon as I got out of work, I ran down and got one of each.
My waistline is not happy with you.
I think next time we should talk about the etymology of exercise words or something.
Absolutely.
Well, you can run to the phone and give us a call.
The number is 1-877-929-9673, or you can run your fingers across the keyboard and send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.
