Big bad bread

As I’ve mentioned before, Sara Dickerman once wrote a great series for the Stranger called Pastry Police. I’m not out to duplicate that work, but I want to call your attention to one particular pastry violation that annoyed me today. Like last time, it’s croissant-related. A great many of my daily thoughts are croissant-related.

One of the points that Brian Wansink makes in Mindless Eating is that rather than eating until we’re full, we take a serving size that we estimate we might want, and then we eat the whole thing. That spells trouble of the eyes-bigger-than-stomach variety. A while back I realized that if I order the smallest size of something on the menu, I’m almost always satisfied by the time I’m finished.

Unfortunately, a lot of things aren’t offered in different sizes. Take croissants. The typical Seattle croissant, like those I encountered this morning at Victrola, is so big that it probably violates the Growth Management Act. I feel about croissants the way I do about chocolate: I know the difference between good chocolate and bad; I wish I could always have good chocolate; but I’ll take bad chocolate over no chocolate. If I’m hungry, I’ll eat a not-so-flaky or underbaked croissant. But I won’t order a croissant the size of Spokane. I’d pay the same price for a croissant half as big. This is not me putting on an abstemious display. This is me saying that a bloated croissant looks gross.

I know this is a tired complaint, and I might as well be protesting outside the Cheesecake Factory. But do you think the Pastry Police are hiring?

9 thoughts on “Big bad bread

  1. Susan

    First against the wall: cafes that serve supersized croissants warmed in a convection microwave. No wonder the French hate us.

  2. mamster Post author

    I remember this great Denis Leary bit about how America is the country that turned the croissant into the Croissanwich.

  3. Wendy

    I had the saddest, saddest croissant the other day. I walked down to a local bakery that looks to have been in business since the 1960s; it’s very cute, the kind of place that still makes the neighborhood wedding cake. I asked the saleswoman what was good. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said “All of it, I guess.” I saw a split croissant filled with sliced strawberries and whipped cream. “Is that real whipped cream?” I asked. “We make it every morning,” she said. So I bought the thing and took it home.

    My, what a disappointment. The croissant was tough and the opposite of delicious. It was hard enough to break your teeth in some spots. And whatever the topping was, it WASN’T whipped cream. Maybe she meant that they take a Sysco container of whipped topping mix and beat it up every morning.

    My point is this: the Pastry Police needs to storm this place and shut it down.

    On the other hand, this place has its grand opening today, two blocks from the apartment, and I’m so excited that I keep wriggling whenever I think about it. http://www.realpiecompany.com

  4. Jason Truesdell

    I remember Boulangerie in Wallingford sometimes offers mini-croissants, which are actually pretty much the normal size of croissant in Europe.

    Even though I absolutely love the croissants at Besalu, I feel that even theirs are a little large.

    Most croissants at coffee shops taste more like dinner rolls than croissant anyway, but yeah, I find myself ordering them even when I know better. It’s kind of like the toasted frozen bagels I ate in college in the Midwest; they were only a reminder of a bagel, not actual bagels.

    (As a complete non-sequitur, Seattle is much worse for bagels since the late-80s acquisition of New York Bagel Boys by Gai’s… they used to make real bagels in real bagel shops, and they were sanely sized, and not fruity.)

  5. Christos Dimitrakakis

    At some point I was in the habit of eating triple-sized croissants overflowing with chocolate and topped with whipped cream!
    It seems unthinkable now.

  6. h-Moose

    I used to like getting the mini croissants at the a la francais bakery in U-Village. Too bad they closed….what ever you do Mamster, do not buy the Pillsbury Dough Boy crescent rolls. Sickness. -Moose

  7. Jason Truesdell

    Finally tried Bagel Oasis today. I never gave them much thought since I thought they were the same folks that run the deli in Fremont (Roxy’s, I think), and I wasn’t all that excited by their bagels.

    Bagel Oasis is clearly a step above Noah’s and the like, although they do voluntarily offer cruelty to bagels… They asked if I want the bagel (with cream cheese) toasted.

    For a real, fresh bagel, that’s just wrong. I hope people don’t do that on a regular basis… it was never requested in the late 70s/early 80s. I only do that with day-old bagels to get a little more life out of them.

    I’d also be perfectly happy with a bagel about 20% smaller, but they weren’t the same kind of monstrosities I’ve seen elsewhere in town.

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