Today on Food on Fridays we re-visit the topic of Krapfen as we celebrate the fact that this post is the 700th post on this blog. 🙂

Krapfen is a German word that —at least in some parts of Germany and Northern Italy —  refers to a jelly doughnut. I have written numerous times on this blog about the quest to find the perfect jelly doughnut, whether it’s called a Berliner (as it is here in Tübingen), a Pfannkuchen) (as it is in Berlin), or a Krapfen (as it is in Bolzano).

But Krafpen aren’t just jelly doughnuts, actually. In fact, we were reminded of that when we were back in Bolzano for a short visit last month. I know it can seem like we only eat sweet things, since that’s all I seem to blog about these days. 😉 But while we were in Bolzano we sampled more than just the desserts, including savory specialties such as canederli (ball of bread-stuffing) and Gröstl (sliced potatoes that are pan-fried with pork and onions)

Plate of Canederli, Bolzano

Canederli closeup, Bolzano

Gröstl and a glass of local wine, Bolzano

We also had a non-sweet type of Krapfen that is also a local Bolzano specialty. Called Schlutzkrapfen, it was always one of my favorites: ravioli-like pasta served in a sage and melted butter sauce, liberally topped with Parmesan cheese:

Schlutzkrapfen, Bolzano

So Krapfen themselves aren’t always sweet – these are filled with spinach, not jam.

Now I had tried to form a natural class of what made them all Krapfen. I had come up with a working hypothesis that they were all filled pockets of dough, some sweet, some not.

But then, while we were killing time at the train station in Bonn-Siegburg a couple of weeks ago, we ran across something called a Krapfen that didn’t look anything like a jelly doughnut — and it turned out not to be filled, either:

Krapfen at the Bonn-Siegburg train station cafe

Interestingly , it was sitting the shelf next to a Berliner.  It seems in that part of Germany, the word Krapfen is used for this other type of pastry.

Anyway, a friend pointed me to some entries in Wikipedia that list many, many different types of “doughnuts”/Krapfen/Berliner, in Germany and around the world:

• List of Doughnut Varieties worldwide
• List of types of Berliner doughnuts in Germany

There are a lot of different doughnut types listed in those entries. But I don’t think there are quite 700, so what’s the connection to this being the 700th post?

Well, I’ll be honest, there really isn’t a specific one.  However, the fun of writing the blog is always sharing something new about life here in Tübingen or somewhere else, sharing the adventures or the moments that strike me as interesting each day.

So today’s 700th post is in that spirit, even if there aren’t really 700 Krapfen, as the title of this post might suggest. And it’s also not the case that I’ve written 700 posts just about doughnuts.

Well, at least not yet. But stay tuned … there’s bound to be another one coming up sometime soon. 😉