Artisanal Toast?

[randomness]

I missed this when it came out last summer, but C.A. Pinkham gets quite a rant on about artisanal toast:

You've got to be shitting me. Artisanal Toast? "Artisanal" goddamn TOAST is a trend now. There's officially no reason to try to save our species. Let's just send the Earth crashing into the sun and be done with it.

...

The most rage-inducing part about Artisanal ferretbuggering Toast has to be the price: The Mill sells theirs for $4 a slice, and I think a blood vessel just popped in my brain. Apparently, there are places in LA and New York which sell pieces of toasted fucking bread with ricotta and jam on them for upwards of $7. Like you do for toast.

...

This is a step too far, Hipsters. This is a step too goddamn far.

Also, “Artisinal Kool-Aid” is on a page referenced in comments.

Also this:

ETA: Yes, guys. I'm now aware that there was an NPR/This American Life/other media outlet story about the lady who invented Artisanal Toast, and that it was inspirational and uplifting and incredible and that it brings unicorns back to life and travels through time to go kill Hitler. You can stop linking me to it now, please.

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Finally, I found this from Hannah Goldfield in The New Yorker:

In the case of artisanal toast, the backlash seems directed more at the societal phenomenon it evinces than at the food itself. Who doesn’t like toast? The economic and moral objections to it could be used against many of the things we consume in restaurants—coffee, for instance—and Clement admits that the toast she sampled at Tallulah’s, a café in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, was excellent. Artisanal toast is hardly the first harbinger of our food obsession, or even necessarily the most egregious, but it’s become a scapegoat for a growing, broader cultural backlash; the toast that broke the camel’s back.

Comments

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

that was such a bullshit article. The toast in question is not just a slab of bread, but house made bread with house made toppings like ricotta and jams. That costs more than a couple of slices of Pepperidge Farms whole wheat with foil wrapped butter slices rock hard next to it.That costs you 2$ at a diner

[bryant]

That lady who invented artisanal toast sells it a few blocks from our house. It's pretty good. No comments about the overall trend, I just like hers with coffee.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's what you get when a herd of remittance men are spending daddy's money to show each other how cool they are. Some of them probably find the product worth the price, but for most of them, it's the adult version of "An American teenager may work at being popular every waking hour, 365 days a year."

[tavella.livejournal.com]

That's a stupid rant. No one blinks at a $4 muffin, and it is far easier to make a good muffin at home than it is good toast. I say this as someone who got cut off from my former supply of the perfect toasting bread: a pain de mie my CSA carried that was fine grained yet firm, pre cut into the perfect thick slice.

Grocery store breads? Invariably far more coarse textured and bubbly. Japanese milk bread? The right texture but far too soft. Bakery shops? Almost never carry plain loaves of sandwich bread.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

It's important to remember that some writers are aiming for "funny", and some are aiming for "fair". You don't always get both.

[a-dodecahedron.livejournal.com]

Heh. Good rant.

It amuses me that my apartment is about half way between the artisanal toast and the bar that kicked out the Google Glass user.