As 2020 lumbered to a close, I cannot have been the only one craving a modicum of quiet. That was my plan, peace and quiet, somewhere not too far away from civilization, but also with relatively few people. When the real estate agent told me over the phone that his condo in
Maine, just up from the beach, was next door to one of the state's most popular
doughnut shops, I was already there in my mind.
Since the 1950s, Congdon's Doughnuts has been a fixture in the town of Wells, which isn't so much a town as it is a collection of classic New England beach sprawl, spread out along the Post Road between quaint Ogunquit and the stiff upper lip Kennebunks. When I moved in, I had a perfect view of the drive-thru, by now the preferred pick-up method. I quickly learned the schedule, and Thursdays became my favorite day of the week. I'd wake up while it was still dark out to see the cars waiting patiently, quietly, on the first morning back after the shop's weekly break. At a time when Maine was finally experiencing the full weight of the pandemic, something so benign as a line of cars at a drive-through, viewed from the windows of my four-season porch, felt communal, shared.
I hadn't hated Mondays since my school years, but now they meant one, two, three days of no doughnuts, no occasional spice-scented waft on the breeze, no positive energy of people anticipating nice things, because when doughnuts are literally just around the corner, and you're cozy and safe in your car, who wouldn't be feeling good?
There have been so many doughnut temptations over the years, so many little obsessions, going all the way back to proper Boston creams and frothy hot chocolate at horseshoe-shaped counters with the spinning-top stools in New York City, cider doughnuts on the farm all over Hudson Valley and New England, malasadas in Honolulu and Fall River, too, beignets in Baton Rouge, pre-trend croissant doughnuts in time-capsule Midwestern bakeries, biscuit doughnuts in the Deep South, and now, big, brioche dough beauties everywhere.
The American doughnut is as varied as we are, and there's almost no corner of the country that hasn't been hooked for generations, or failed to put their own stamp on the genre. This list of the best doughnuts in America is, fair warning, intensely personal, assembled after several years of doughnut eating in the name of research. Pull up a chair, and let's do some traveling.
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