Talk:Funnel cake
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Are you sure about "the fried dough of the Midwest"? I've lived in Chicago since about 1990, and it's always been funnel cake; I've never even heard of fried dough. I'm not an expert or anything, just seemed odd. Best, Meelar 17:23, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
NEVER saw it in Wisconsin even though Wisconsin is practically part of Chicagoland... by Wisconsin I mean Madison, southeast Wisconsin, and occasionally Door County. Who knows what they may do in Kenosha or Milwaukee... I ALWAYS saw "fried dough," at any street fair, etc. My wife, who grew up in Wisconsin, has confirmed this: fried dough everywhere, funnel cake unknown.
It was I who added the remark about its being Pennsylvania Dutch, but I admit that the first place I personally encountered it was in, Cape May, New Jersey and it is obviously in the process of spreading. http://www.funnelcake.ca is a Canadian site that tells you how you can big bucks by starting your own funnel cake business....
Anyone have any insights about the areas in which funnel cake is popular? Where have YOU seen funnel cake? Dpbsmith 17:29, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I ran into it first at Spring Carnival at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh PA (and adding a link there is what made me create this entry), but since then I've seen it on the east coast (MA) as well. It's definitely not as popular as fried dough. Bcordes 17:45, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)
The Canadian site says that it was created by the "Dutch Amish" (sic). I am originally from the Chicago area- We ate and even made our own funnel cakes but what is "fried dough"? Do you mean "elephant ears"? Or something else? Rmhermen 18:19, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)
I can't say until you tell me what in the world "elephant ears?" are. OK, My wife is looking over my shoulder; she says she knows what elephant ears are--baked not fried, usually with nuts in them and cinnamon, and are nothing at all like fried dough. "Fried dough" is... these are decade-old recollections and the stuff was sooooo nutritionally evil that I can't say I was very familiar with then--a thing that's maybe roughly circular, about the size of a small plate, maybe two inches thick, looking vaguely like pizza dough, but intensely sweet, and, of course, not only fried in oil but moist with oil when you eat it and leaves your hands oily no matter how careful you are. Usually sprinkled with powdered sugar. Lots of powdered sugar. Like a two-inch-thick pancake? Dpbsmith 23:19, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Googling: Funnel cake is apparently offered at Disney World [1] and Sea World in the Orlando, Florida area. [2] . Dpbsmith 23:25, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Your description of "fried dough" seems to be a good description of an elephant ear, although I wouldn't say they are quite that thick. And certainly they are fried not baked, not sure about nuts. They are sold at every fair and carnival that I can remember. I found a site which explains "fried dough" as a New England term for what are known elselwhere as elephant ears. Rmhermen 15:54, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
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- I think I saw that same site--was it a picture of a fried dough stand and a comment about those straightforward New England people not calling them doughnuts or beignets? Fried dough, by that name, _is_ found here in New England but it is NOT particularly common nor do people think of it as characteristic of the region. I saw another site which describe funnel cakes as "elephant ears with holes," so it seems clear that there is more than one thing that is called elephant ears and that at least one of them is similar to fried dough and funnel cakes. Dpbsmith 16:12, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
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- huh - fried dough is kind of like a beignet (only fried dough is flatter and much larger around), now that you mention it. i've seen fried dough at carnivals and fairs all over new england (i'm a Massachusetts native), and not that i've been to many similar events in the Midwest (or elsewhere, for that matter), but the term "elephant ear" is completely unknown to me. it does sound like we're talking about the same thing, though. --Bcordes 16:20, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
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- Not to confuse matters, but I believe a kind of funnel cake, known as tippaleipa, is part of the Finnish culture. A google search for tippaleipa seems to support my assertion - the batter (some sites call it "cruller batter") is funneled into a vat of oil and then it is sweetened with sugar once cooked. I've seen it made at cultural festivals. I don't know how that affects this article, or whether different types of funnel cakes appeared in different places with separate origins, or whether there is an ancestor to funnel cakes somewhere (Finland or elsewhere, I know not). Please excuse the intrusion. Jwrosenzweig 16:27, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC) P.S. Drat you all. I now have a desire for funnel cake, and the only readily available food is a cup of yogurt. :-) Jwrosenzweig 16:30, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
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- also exercising my powers of Google, i found a recipe site that links to recipes for "Fried Dough" but are entitled "Elephant Ears" [3] a page with a picture of an elephant ear and a description that matches what we've put in here [4] and a commercial page that corroborates that elephant ears, fried dough, and "beaver tails" (canadian) are the same thing [5]. back on the original topic of funnel cake, there's a good picture on this site [6] --Bcordes 16:35, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
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- Doing some Googling I found Funnel cakes mentioned in PA, NJ, AZ, CT, AL, CO, VA, NH, GA, SC, TX, (and a single booth that serves booth elephant ears and funnel cakes at an IL carnival) ((Also I found elephant ears mentioned in MI, IN, IA, KY, OH, FL, ID, IL)). So I took out the Midwest reference in the article. Not sure about the range of "fried dough". Rmhermen 17:04, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
- I can say for a fact that funnel cake is served at fairs and festivals in East Texas. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:39, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Only on Wikipedia could this kind of conversation ever take place. Meelar 18:40, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
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- Well, there are many recipes on the web for "funnel cake," "fried dough," and "elephant ears," but I have not had a chance to collect them and compare them to see how similar they are. Certainly the article should mention that whereas "funnel cake" is, well, funnelled, the others are just big blobs. I think the article should mention that, when made on fairgrounds, etc. there is no "funnel" as such--a large, specially-designed pitcher with a funnel-like spout is used; presumably an ordinary funnel is used when they are made at home?
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- Oh, that article at [7] you found is really good. We should mine that for all it's worth short of copyright violation. And it adds another term to the list—"fryer saucers," as in "How Does Funnel Cakes Differ From Fried Dough/Elephant Ears/Fryer Saucers?"
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- Another question that should be answered is how similar any of these things are to doughnuts (and, yeah, beignets). Dpbsmith 19:25, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
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I think it's about time to make entries for fried dough, elephant ears, and (less commonly) beaver tails, frying saucers, and Indian fry bread. After brooding about possible ways to organize it, I decided there really should be a single article covering all of them, and that the other entries should be redirects. I didn't think it really made sense to have a second article about the yeast-based fried-dough family because we don't that much information—it would basically be a mirror image of the funnel cake article. I couldn't think of a good neutral title for the whole shebang--"Carnival and street-fair fried-dough-based foods?" "Funnel cake and fried dough?" so I just decided to let funnel cake stand as the main article and create redirects for everything else. It can all always be changed if the article ever expands out of all recognition to its present state. Dpbsmith 23:03, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Lumping funnel cake and fried dough together under the same entry seems a little counter-intuitive to me, for the reason you mentioned: what would you call the generic entry? I think that there's (barely) enough information for each of them to be separate non-stub entries, though it totally makes sense for them to cross-reference each other. And since this is Wikipedia, after all, presumedly someone else interested will come along and add more information to them ;) --Bcordes 23:16, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
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- Well, I've un-lumped them, now. Fried dough has its own article. You see, I was at a street fair today in Massachusetts... I'd still love to have some kind of geographical breakdown of the various foods, because while fried dough is obviously common in Massachusetts, I never saw it in New York where I grew up and saw it all the time in Wisconsin, never saw funnel cake... whereas Meelar testifies to having lived in Chicago since 1990 and having seen funnel cake all the time and never having seen fried dough. Perhaps it has something to do with regional distributor of carnival-food supplies? Anyway, I took some snapshots and that seemed like a good enough excuse for an article. It seems to me that these Malden, MA fried dough specimens were smaller, more elongated and cruller-shaped than the pie-plate-sized portions of fried dough I had seen before. Perhaps it's a concession to modern nutritional theories, as I still find it frightening to imagine consuming an entire serving of fried dough.
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- The concessionaires were, of course, puzzled by my interest in photographing their wares, and said, "Oh, you must be foreign." I wish I had had the presence of mind to say, "Oh yes, I am from Finland, this reminds me of the tippaleipa we have at our vappu." I probably could have come away with enough material for ten articles... Dpbsmith 21:10, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I live in eastern Pennsylvania (about 20 minutes north of Philadelpia) and oh is funnel cake popular around here. In this area everyone knows funnel cake, not fried dough, everyone knows the smell, and we all have what one might call "Funnel Cake detectors" for noses. Needless to say, it is only known as Funnel Cake around here, and in most of this region from what I can see. It's a part of life... ShirtNinja101 12:22, 17 April 2006
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The Lorax's photograph of a funnel cake turned this article from a bland description into something that set off my sensory memory. Damnit, now my mouth is watering, and the state fair isn't for another two months! -- Cyrius|✎ 17:58, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Take a look at Garbage plate. That should cure any excessive salivation issues. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 19:18, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Glad to be of help Cyrius. Lorax 01:39, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
