I was lucky with my first taste of the Indian snack jalebis because they were good ones. The delicate swirls of fried batter were fresh and crisp, and the syrup they were soaked in after cooking had been flavoured with rosewater and saffron, making them somewhat upscale. They're something I've tasted many times since but, unfortunately, never have they been as good as those first ones; they're usually too hard and dry, either having been made too far in advance or not having been soaked for long enough in the syrup.
I watched with interest on my first trip to India as jalebis were made by street vendors in Old Delhi. Some squeezed the batter out of large squirt bottles, others used something similar to a pastry bag. Some jalebis were rather free-form in shape, other vendors managed to make them into pretty rosettes with a hole in the centre. Their shade of orange varied, as did the syrup used. Most of the time there was a hint of rosewater and, once or twice, I'm sure I detected cardamom - but, sadly, none of them had saffron.
While I have always thought of them as an Indian snack, it turns out something similar is eaten in many other parts of South Asia, as well as in the Middle East.