My wife's family call them featherbeds. They used a slightly
sweetened version of their heavy white bread dough [with milk and
Crisco but no egg] that had been made the day before and refrigerated
until an hour or two before the oil was heated up.

Then the tricky part was to tear off pieces and pull them into
paper-thin bits before dunking in hot oil.

These are closest I see out there-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St...ried_Dough.jpg
Mimi would have let them slide-- but hers would not have had those
thick spots in the centers.

Some eat them with butter- some with confectioners sugar- some with
maple syrup- and some with cinnamon & sugar.

I like one plain - hot out of the oil.

I've never heard anyone else call them 'featherbeds'. [and my mom
never made anything that involved yeast- so I never had them growing
up]

If anyone called them featherbeds, do you know where the name came
from? It is supposedly a handed down recipe-- but I'm curious
about whether it came from the English, Irish, German, Canadian,
Quaker, ?Native American?- or 'NY redneck' branch.

Jim