Doughnuts and coffee are the morning meal at KCUR’s Central Standard

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Have doughnuts always been known as a breakfast meal?

Culinary historians — who agree that fried cakes date back to prerecorded history — say no; the pastries we now call doughnuts, or donuts, were brought to America by Dutch settlers, who called them olykoeks or “oily cakes.” These could be eaten day or night.

We don’t often think of doughnuts as movie snacks (although it’s a great idea), but movie operators during the Depression did offer them as an alternative to candy or nuts. At least one local cinema, the Vogue Theater — it once stood at the corner of Armour Boulevard and Broadway — had a doughnut shop in the building, and patrons frequently brought the freshly fried snacks into the auditorium.

The doughnut, in all of its incarnations, will be the topic this morning on Central Standard, the KCUR 89.3 weekday program hosted by Gina Kaufmann.

I will join Gina in the studio — with Mary Bloch and Jenny Vergara — to spread the news about the best doughnuts, yeast or cake, in Kansas City.

You can join the conversation to discuss your own favorite doughnuts in the Kansas City metro by calling 816-235-2888.