Fried Dough at the Turn of the Year

My first winter in the Netherlands felt darker than I expected. As the days shortened, small stands began appearing across the city — bright, almost theatrical, their windows stacked high with golden fried dough. People stopped on their way home, buying one to eat while walking or carrying a small paper bag back to the train.

I didn't think much about it at first. It simply felt like winter had arrived. But after that first year, I began to expect it. Even though I never grew to love the cold, windy Dutch weather, I started looking forward to this moment. The stands felt like a quiet signal that something brighter was coming — Christmas markets, lights strung across streets, people standing outside in scarves and gloves, holding warm oliebollen in one hand and coffee in the other. The air stayed cold, but the city felt warmer.

The first time I ate oliebollen on New Year's Eve, it wasn't at a market stand. It was after midnight. The clock struck twelve. There was a toast, quick hugs and kisses, and then we stood by the window watching fireworks scatter across the neighborhood sky — loud and chaotic, each street setting off its own celebration, one of the last years individual fireworks would be allowed before restrictions came.

While the fireworks continued outside, we ate oliebollen indoors, still warm, along with appelbeignet — a battered slice of apple fried until golden. The sweetness felt steady and grounding after the noise. The room was warm. The ritual felt contained and deliberate.

The stands vanish once the cold lifts. Their disappearance is part of their meaning.

Fánk and the End of Winter

In Hungary, fried dough belonged to another moment in the calendar.

I had eaten fánk many times without thinking much about it. My mother-in-law would make stacks of them, soft and golden, dusted with powdered sugar. I accepted them simply as dessert — generous, abundant, always there.

It wasn't until the end of February, when the air was still cold but beginning to soften, that I understood more. My husband said casually, "We need to chase away winter." He explained that this was carnival season, the final stretch before spring, when fánk traditionally appears. "It's time to eat some fánk," he said, as if the season itself had issued the instruction.

I hadn't realized there was a formal moment for this — a celebration to mark winter's loosening grip, with fánk holding its place in it. The scale of it surprised me. It was not a small local custom.

I had eaten the dough before. I just hadn't understood the timing.

After the Errands at the Market

My own childhood memory of fried dough carries no such timing. It comes from the market — going with my mother, receiving something sweet and warm after the errands were done. The Korean versions I liked most were made from sticky rice dough, chapssal doneocheu (찹쌀도너츠), sometimes filled with red bean paste. Soft and chewy, not airy. There was also a twisted variation, kkwabaegi, dusted with coarse sugar. Simple, uneven, not made to impress.

Nobody described them as symbols. They were simply there — woven into an ordinary afternoon, handed over without ceremony.

What strikes me now is the absence of occasion. In the Netherlands, oliebollen belongs to the depth of winter and the turn of the year. In Hungary, fánk arrives as winter loosens its grip. In Korea, the dough was just the dough — warm, sweet, the small reward at the end of a market trip.

The shape of the season was different. The gesture was the same.

When I pass the winter stands now, I no longer see them as theatrical interruptions. I expect them. Even in weather I never quite learned to love, I wait for that small paper bag in my hand. The cold stays. So does the warmth.