Monkey bread — a sticky pull-apart pastry that’s typically made from canned biscuit dough — is a sugary, cinnamony treat that got its start in the U.S. when Hungarian immigrants brought it to America in the late 19th century. The dish was originally known as aranygaluska, meaning “golden dumpling.” In the 1970s, Betty Crocker even featured it in a cookbook, where it was labeled as “Hungarian Coffee Cake.” Eventually, the dish became known as “monkey bread.” There’s no clear answer as to how monkey bread got its name, but the most common explanation is that it’s named after the way it’s eaten: with your fingers, pulling apart the sticky pieces of dough one by one, much like a monkey might eat a banana. Some trace it back to 20th century slang. In the 1940s, monkey food was Southern slang for casual snacks you could eat with your hands. That, combined with jumble bread — another old-timey term for breads made from small pieces of dough — could have lead to monkey bread. Yet another theory credits silent film star ZaSu Pitts, who reportedly used the term in a 1945 cooking column after bringing the recipe home from Nashville. In the end, monkey bread might just be one of those names that stuck, literally and figuratively. Like the dessert itself, it’s a little weird but oddly delightful.
