Monkey bread is a wonderful food, with a strange name.  No one really seems to know for certain how it got its name, but rest assured – no monkeys are harmed in the making of this delicious treat.  And it’s not some weird code disguising something gross, like how “sweetbreads” are actually the thymus and pancreas of cows.  Monkey bread is made of biscuit dough cut into small pieces and covered in cinnamon, sugar, and held together with a kind of caramel.  Monkey bread made its first appearance in women’s magazines in the 1950s and fits very much with the vogue of using canned or frozen ingredients and spiffing them up in interesting (and occasionally horrifying) ways.  The 1950s ideology was all about making the modern housewife’s life easier with push buttons and quickly prepared foodstuffs.  I have fond memories of sitting in my grandma’s kitchen and eating monkey bread that she made, which makes sense since she was a young housewife in the 1950s.

I could go on about this stuff forever, since it is part of what I’m studying in school, but I digress.  Monkey bread is indeed an easy to make dish that can serve as breakfast, dessert, or just a little snack.

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