Malasadas

This last Wednesday night, our YW activity was to learn how to make malasadas.
I was so excited! I love malasadas!

My love for malasadas began during my flying days...
specifically, the ten years that I only flew to the islands of Hawaii...
(eight round trips a month...flying to any one of the islands...Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Hawaii)
(I got paid to do this! It was definitely some of the best flying of my career.)

Anyway...back to malasadas...
The flight attendants who were from the islands turned us all onto malasadas.
If we had a morning departure from Honolulu, they always had our van driver stop by Leonard's Bakery on the way to the airport so we could pick up freshly baked malasadas.
It was heavenly!
So, when I found out I was going to learn how to make them, I was so excited!
It brought up so many fond memories of those days. They turned out sooo good.
So, I was curious about the history behind malasadas...

In 1878, Portuguese laborers from the Madeira and Azores came to Hawaii to work in the plantations.
These immigrants brought their traditional foods with them, including a fried dough pastry called the "malasada".
Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday"), the day before lent, is also known as Malasada Day in Hawaii.
Being predominantly Catholic, Portuguese immigrants would need to use up all of their butter and sugar prior to lent. They did so by making large batches of malasadas, which they would subsequently share with friends from all the other ethnic groups in the plantation camps. This led to the popularity of the malasada in Hawaii.

So, hooray for lent!

WaLa!!!!!!!