I don’t get it.
According to Time Magazine, people in New York are lining up at 6:00 a.m. to score one of chef Dominique Ansel’s cronuts. He only makes about 200 a day (they are labor intensive) so apparently a black market has developed that has people paying $100 for one. According to The New York Post, many of the people lining up at 6 a.m. are being paid by other city dwellers who don’t want to get out of bed before the sun rises.
All this for a dressed up croissant?
If you have been outside the food hipster circles for the last couple weeks and don’t know what a cronut is, well its a cross between a croissant and donut.
…thin layers of flaky croissant dough that are deep fried, rolled in rose sugar, and then filled with light Tahitian vanilla cream. Rose-flavored glaze thinly coats the top layer, which peels apart like those in a mille crepe cake; finally, crystallized rose petals add a garnish flourish.
I was going to write disparagingly about this trend toward haphazardly throwing together ingredients from traditional foods. But this does look good. A big improvement on the cupcake craze of a few years ago.
But really, its just a pastry. Why would people pay $100 for one? How are we to understand this maniacal interest in fried dough? Here are some hypotheses:
- The overwrought decadence of a dying materialist culture?
- A celebration of affluence. (In many countries people wait in line for hours to get drinking water)
- The new opiate of the masses.
- Maybe some kind of new Milgram experiment
I vote for a new Milgram experiment. Any day now we will hear this all was an elaborate psychological experiment to see how far chefs will go to humiliate their obedient customers.
I fits well with the “tyrannical chef” theme that food critic Korby Kummer was promoting awhile back.
I think it is time for a new hot trend—cynicism about hot new trends
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