funnel cakes are universal
And very, very old. There are medieval recipes that says to let the batter run "thurgh thy fyngours or thrugh a skymour" or a bowl with holes in the bottom instead of a funnel.
(googling happens here... .... ... ) Got it!
This is an excerpt from
Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books(England, 1430)
The original source can be found at
the University of Michigan's "Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse"lj - Cryspe3. Take Whyte of Eyroun, Mylke, and Floure, and a lytel Berme, and bete it to-gederys, and draw it thorw a straynoure, so that it be renneng, and not to styf, and caste Sugre ther-to, and Salt; thanne take a chafer ful of freysshe grece boyling, and put thin hond in the Bature, and lat thin bature renne dowun by thin fyngerys in-to the chafere; and whan it is ronne to-gedere on the chafere, and is y-now, take and nym a skymer, and take it vp, and lat al the grece renne owt, and put it on a fayre dyssche, and cast ther-on Sugre y-now, and serue forth.
http://www.medievalcookery.com/search/display.html?twofi:204