After decades of service, a doughy staple of Prairie pastry is saying goodbye to Saskatoon’s summer exhibition — but hearty bakers say that doesn’t mean it’s RIP to the redoubtable round treat known simply as the spudnut.
Just ask Jamie Bootsma of Bootsma Bakery in Lethbridge, Alta., who remembers that city’s spudnut wars but acknowledges the deep-fried delicacy they make is facing a strong challenge from its cousin, the doughnut.
“Doughnuts are becoming more popular,” Bootsma said.
“So if [customers] haven’t grown up with it, they’re not typically aware of it or going out to seek it. But once you’ve tried a spudnut and you know what it is, you want a spudnut.”
According to the website atlasobscura.com, Spudnuts was the first doughnut chain in the United States, making a potato-based version of doughnuts in Utah beginning in the 1940s.
Their origin goes back much further to German immigrants in Pennsylvania, the website says, who wanted to get rid of sugar and fat in the house before Lent.
It says the starchy tubers absorb moisture, but are stiff enough to hold air, making a fluffy, soft, tender and moist doughnut.
Bootsma said she’d never heard of spudnuts until she moved to the city from Calgary back in 2019, but a local shop that was selling them closed shortly after she arrived.
“When they closed their doors, many different businesses in the city started doing spudnuts and it became like spudnut wars in Lethbridge. Like, who had the best, and where could you get them on what days. So it’s been pretty awesome. We’ve been continuing it since then,” Bootsma said, noting the region of southern Alberta has numerous potato farms.
Bootsma Bakery only sells spudnuts on Thursdays. It’s also a hybrid — with some wheat flour mixed in with the potato flour — because she said a potato-only spudnut comes out too dense.
It’s a little sweeter than a regular doughnut, she said.
Spudnut lives on: Legendary Lethbridge dessert makes a comeback
They offer a dozen varieties from glazed to maple dip and toasted coconut.
“Maple bacon’s really popular ’cause it’s a little sweet, it’s a little salty,” she said.
A social media announcement from the Saskatoon Exhibition that this year’s fair would, for the first time in decades, not feature spudnuts elicited responses that ranged from odes to the confection, to the confused who asked, “What’s a spudnut?”
“That was one of the highlights of me going to the fair and always stopping in and at the spudnuts booth,” one person posted in the comments following the announcement from the Saskatoon Ex.
“It’s been like a tradition in our family. I did it with my mom when I was a kid and then my mom did it with me and her grandkids. It’s sad to see it go!! we bought extras to bring home.”
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The Ex did not respond to a request for an interview on the decision to nix the ‘nuts, but said in its announcement that it understands there’s a strong emotional connection and nostalgia many families have for the long-standing fair tradition.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision, made after thorough review of the operational requirements, facility needs, and staffing required to run the program sustainably,” the fair posted on Facebook in late June.
The post said no decision has been made about future years.
A number of Canadians still have hand-scribbled recipes for spudnuts — some use potato flour while others use mashed potatoes.
And they remain a popular treat at a few bakeries, particularly on the Prairies.
A bakery named Johnny O’s Spudnuts in Logan, Utah, meanwhile, advertises it’s been in business since 1949 and has a sister location in Farmington, N.M.
Jason Russell, the chair of the spudnut fundraising committee for the Rotary Club in The Battlefords, Sask., said spudnuts remain popular at the community’s annual Northwest Territorial Days Fair in August, where Rotarians have been selling them for decades and usually raise more than $30,000 each year for local projects.
But Russell said mixing the ingredients starts each morning at 5 a.m. and they require a lot of volunteers, so he’s sympathetic toward the Saskatoon Ex over its decision to pull the plug.
“We usually run about three shifts in between eight and 10 people per shift, sometimes 12 if we’re really busy. So it’s probably 30 people a day. So we need like probably 100 volunteers over the course of three or four days,” he said.
Bootsma said there isn’t a typical spudnut customer — they’re young and old. Lots have never heard of them. Sometimes, she said, the bakery is asked to make up a batch for tourists to give them a special experience.
Will the tasty treats, ahem, spudder out? Will they be eclipsed by doughnuts and other, newer fairground confections like the Cookies N Cream Korean Corndog, which is one of the Saskatoon Ex’s new menu items this year?
“People get very excited about spudnuts,” Bootsma said about her Thursday customers.
“It’s awesome and so rewarding to share that excitement and see the joy on their faces.”
