Graffa Napoletana, the Neapolitan Doughnut

The word is usually traced to krapfen, the fried dough of the German-speaking world. The common explanation is that the recipe reached Naples during the years of Austrian rule in the early eighteenth century, and that Neapolitans then did what they tend to do with imports: changed it until it was theirs.

The changes are what make a graffa a graffa. Where a krapfen is usually a filled bun, the Neapolitan version is traditionally a ring, left unfilled and rolled in sugar. Traditionally, too, cooks in Naples work boiled potato into the dough, which is a large part of why the homemade kind is so tender. Recipes differ from one bakery to the next: ours is made without potato.

Close enough that the word helps, different enough that it is worth saying how. An American cake doughnut is dense and often glazed; a yeast-raised one is chewier and usually iced. A graffa sits on the soft end of that scale: light, a little springy, with sugar rather than glaze, and it is at its best within a few hours of frying. It is a fresh pastry, not a box-of-a-dozen one.

In Naples you eat it on your feet at the bar, with coffee, and you do not worry about the sugar on your shirt. That habit of eating on the move runs all through the city, from the bars to the fry shops, and our piece on Naples street food walks through the rest of it.

In the morning, the natural partner is a cappuccino, whose milk softens the sweetness. Later in the day, switch to an espresso. And if you like fried pastry but want cream inside, look at the fried zeppola, which is the graffa's fancier relative.

Whatever you pair it with, eat it soon after buying. A graffa that waits until evening is still pleasant, but the tender, just-fried texture is the reason to order one, and it does not keep the way a cookie does.