Natalie Block, age 9, of Trumbull, Conn., for her question:

WHY DO DOUGHNUTS HAVE HOLES?

The round, deep fried cake that has a hole in its center is one of today's favorite snack foods. Called the doughnut, it was brought to     Colonial America by Dutch settlers and originally called the olykoeck, or fried cake.

According to all reliable sources, a sea captain by the name of Hanson Gregory is the man who invented the doughnut's famous hole. The year was 1847, and the hole was cut into the dough for a very simple reason: to give the cake a larger area for cooking and thereby make it more digestible.

Capt. Gregory is remembered by a bronze plaque that marks his birthplace in Maine's Camden township, in a town now called Rockport.