Southern culture on the shelves, part 4

Krispy Kreme. No exclamation mark. Oh, OK, maybe a half one.

After three years without regular access, I have managed to locate and visit one of Pittsburgh's three count 'em three! Krispy Kreme doughnut emporia.

Despite the long absence from nature's perfect food--the hot-off-the-belt, sugary, gooey Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut--I showed some admirable restraint (for me) and had only two doughnuts, neither of which was a traditional glazed. I didn't see the light on, that gluttoness, gluteness beacon in the night that fires a synapse that bellows "hot doughnuts comin' through!"so I stuck with the sticky I know and love best--cake doughnuts--opting for one sour cream and one chocolate.

The sour cream cake--probably my favorite doughnut variety of all time, with the possible exception of some sort of doughnut (or anything) with chocolate on it or in it--did not disappoint. It was an outstanding example of its kind, both sweet and not-sweet, with a slight tang (but, thank goodness, no Tang) to it, solid like cake, but gently yielding to the bite. Bon apetit.

The chocolate cake, though, was in fact a disappointment. I'll never understand how one can screw up chocolate anything, but this sample was not up to the usual Krispy Kreme standard, nor did it represent the "ideal copy" as it were, the official ANSI standard of cake doughnuts the civilized world over.

It tasted . . . funny. I half-wondered whether the store clerk had mistakenly given me a blueberry cake (blech!) instead.

That or KK has started replacing our regular cake doughnut ingredients with those made from Folger's Crystals. That or possibly anti-freeze.

So you gotta think something's gone horribly wrong in the kitchen if'n your chocolate cake is even vaguely reminiscent of blueberry or, worse, conjures up unpleasant images of unleashed pets and freshly drained radiator fluids. That or it's an example of fusion cuisine gone tragically, terribly wrong, reminding me of that odd little Italian-Thai restaurant on Pennsylanvia Avenue in D.C. I frequented years ago. Oh, I so wanted to like it, but, alas, after a number of tries, the pad thai and pesto penne with soggy, overcooked vegetables rendered me bitter and morose.

Getting back to la-not-so-Kreme-de-la-creme for a moment, I don't know what went wrong in the Krispy Factory. Maybe the recipe didn't translate from North Carolinian (where Krispy Kreme brought forth its first offerings) to Pennsylvanian. One too many y'alls and shoogs, none too many slippys and nebbys.

That or the North Carolina begat-ers decided to keep the secret, special recipe to themselves and sent the leftovers from failed culinary experiments out-of-state. Remember what they say about the Mason-Dixon Line: Where the South comes to . . . and the North to . . . um . . . well, you Yankees are better off not knowing.

All I know is that unfortunate bastardization between chocolate and Janitor in a Drum was the first doughnut ever to give me heartburn. So, yeah, I'm thinking anti-freeze. Or weak-willed weed-killer. Or maybe those little sour Chinese candies--you know the type, the ones that taste as if they've been left to soak for a year in a stagnant mix of lye and battery acid--melted down over a can of Sterno and mixed in with some of the meal used to make the casing on a Hot Pocket.

Trust me, stick with the sour cream--or wait for the light to come on and go for the top shelf, reserve glazed. But while we're this far north of the border, we might as well just keep on moving up I-79 toward Erie, hang a right on I-90, then head toward the Ontario border and smack dab into the warm, welcoming, sugar-caked embrace of Tim Horton's.

Ah, blame Canada. Then have another doughnut.