Unless you’ve lived in Northwestern Ontario, you’ve probably never heard of this dessert. It’s a delicious sweet bun topped with creamy icing, called a persian, and it has become legendary among expatriates.

Art Bennett, founder of Bennett’s Bakery, gets the credit for creating this confection sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. Legend has it that he named it in honour of a friend who was visiting from Persia (now Iran). Bennett’s continues to supply grocery stores throughout the city and small towns nearby. In recent years it has opened up two coffee shops, called The Persian Man. Other local bakeries also have the recipe and include persians in their daily offerings. Robin's Donuts offers its own version in its Thunder Bay stores, but it's a fake, made from doughnut batter. There’s no comparison.

Bennett’s Bakery has one other item with a long local history, called the Sally Ann. It’s a small round cake with cream inside, and milk-chocolate coloured icing covering the flat top and round sides. As far as I know its history is as long as the persian’s but it’s never gained the same fame.

When I was a teenager in the sixties, local restaurants featured toasted persians on their menus and we began many Friday nights by heading downtown for a warm sticky buttered bun and a Coke. The icing was always pink then. Now The Persian Man offers blueberry and chocolate, but pink remains the favourite. So many expatriates take a box of persians back home with them, that The Persian Man has a sign by the cash warning customers who ask for a separate container for the icing that airlines will require it to be checked with the luggage.

Despite their popularity, persians have never been marketed outside of Northwestern Ontario. If you want to try one you’ll have to visit, or find a friend to pack some in her luggage for you.