In Seattle there's a bakery called Cupcake Royale, which I suppose planted the seed for this cartoon. It seems the Pacific Northwest is positively exploding with artisinal doughnuts, hamburgers, etc. Not that I'm complaining, really. The trend of gourmet "lowbrow" food just strikes me as an interesting cultural phenomenon. It's similar to the hipster embrace of Pabst Blue Ribbon, except that unlike PBR, gourmet cupcakes don't taste like skunk butt. At least, I assume they don't; I've never actually tried a gourmet cupcake or a skunk butt.
I'm not sure how this happened, but the peepmaster in the fourth panel came out looking eerily like Trey Anastasio. Am I right or am I right?
This sounds a lot like Expensive Sandwiches.
I think the gourmet cupcake thing started with Magnolia Bakery in NYC several years ago. The characters on Sex and the City ate cupcakes there in one episode, and then suddenly, eating fancy cupcakes was the new in thing. I think it’s fading, though — in NYC a year or two ago, the cupcake obsession seemed to mutate into a frozen yogurt obsession (Pinkberry and several others), and lately, I’ve been seeing ads saying “Pie is the new cupcake.” (I collect vintage cookbooks. Food trends fascinate me.)
Artisanal peeps may not have hit the big time, but they seem the most likely of these by far (they already exist). Artisanal marshmallows have been around for a while, so artisanal peeps seem a natural extension.
I’ll have to suggest artisanal pork rinds to an acquaintance who runs a locavore organic burger and corn dog stand…
The trend of gourmet “lowbrow” food just strikes me as an interesting cultural phenomenon.
Yeah, it’s what happens when you trash food you like and discover that it doesn’t stop you liking it or wanting to eat it.
You then have to re-create it so you can bypass your own shame.
Raised pinkies all round!
Hmm.
Sort of? But also I think that you really can get some kind of interesting result out of applying gourmet styles to “lowbrow” food? I mean, that seems sort of obvious in a way… bring lots of cooking talent and good ingredients to food that often has neither, and sometimes it yields something tasty? Not necessarily tastier than the original, but something to exist alongside it?
This is perhaps a roundabout way of saying that the gourmet burger places I’ve been to in Palo Alto and Portland served burgers I really liked.
I think part of it is that, in spite of the huge amount of food experimentation in the past couple of decades, there haven’t been any new classics, so one way of generating new recipes is playing with the pre-existing classics.
@Nancy Lebovitz – no new classics? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Things take time to become classics.
To me, the things to look at are foreign foods that don’t actually look like the food they eat in the country they’re supposedly from. These are things that spread nationwide, and people assume that’s just Chinese or Middle-Eastern or whatever, but it’s really a new invention that happened to catch on because of the good cross-section of taste, differentiation, and convenience. Things like the Canadian donair kebab, the Korean taco, chicken-mango sausages, etc.
Not to mention the one field of food that really *does* require invention… the vegans. They’re constantly pushing the envelope and developing new things. A decade ago I’d never heard the word “seitan” and now I know that you can make a pretty damned tasty substitute for a bbq chicken-wing using it.
Last year, NPR had a bit about how macaroons where the new cupcakes. I’ll confess to never having had a high-end cupcake, but I’ve had some damn good meatloaf/burgers/mashed potatoes/mac’n’cheese/etc. at some of the more high-brow comfort food types places (and they’re not that expensive). It’s a little unfair to say that this proves that hating on food doesn’t stop you from liking it because I don’t think the people hating on these foods and the people reviving them are the same people. I think there’s a lot of respect for traditional cooking among the people doing this sort of food. They’re just reaching back beyond the 1950s for the traditional aspects, as well as applying more modern sensibilities in other respects.
This is popular in Pittsburgh. There’s a bakery called Dozen that started out a few years ago with one location. They have like five now. I like their cupcakes. One of the reasons that I think cupcakes appeal to people is that many people are eating healthier…and a small treat is nice sometimes instead of getting and consuming a whole cake.
@ Mandolin,
Indeed, what’s called “lowbrow” “junk” etc., food, is often perfectly good food that has been compromised by not putting it, and by extension the people who may tend to rely on it, first and that’s the point that should always be made.
Those foods are written off unjustly, rather like the people who tend to eat them. I suppose that could be a metaphor.
the Korean taco
Korean tacos are where I would put my money if I were betting on which hybrid food trend was going to catch on and become permanent. The elements just seem to go so well together. I like to think of Korean taco places all over in a decade or so, the way there have been chinas criollas restaurants all over Manhattan for a generation or so.
Cupcakes are still popular in London, with Bea’s Bakery and the Hummingbird Bakery leading the way.
1. Cupcakes are delicious!
2. Trophy Cupcakes is far superior to Cupcake Royale! I mean, come on, they have MARGARITA CUPCAKES. You really can’t argue with that.
3. I think have fancy cupcakes makes them more acceptable to eat if you’re a fancy shmancy individual and really should be keeping to your diet. But, y’know, at least it’s not like you’re pigging out on some Dunkin’ Doughnuts unspecial cheap cupcakes! Those are for poor people and people who don’t care about their appearance. You can look classy with your fancy cupcake, especially if you talk very loudly about how bad you are being by eating said cupcake and how you’re going to run an extra mile later.