Or butter-knife points, at least. The fuss is over the ptoper shape for France’s iconic breakfast pastry.
Tesco, one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains, has straightened out the popular breakfast treat because, it says, 75% of its customers prefer it that way because it’s easier to butter.
The chain’s chief of croissant-buying told The Guardian (UK) that “with the crescent shaped croissants, it’s more fiddly and most people can take up to three attempts to achieve perfect coverage, which increases the potential for accidents involving sticky fingers and tables.”
French responses included calls for Britain to be kicked out of the European Union (a popular idea among some Brits), tweets calling the straight croissant idea “completely absurd,” or “sheer lunacy,” and perhaps a more measured “We need to teach the English that you don’t butter croissants in the first place.”
Some Britons found it a bit odd, too; one Tweet received by the Telegraph (UK) mocked “As a nation, we aspire to 50% of people going to university, yet we find curved croissants intolerably difficult.”
Photos: Curved, Bex Walton/Flickr; straight, RTL
I think they need an impartial judge, like me, to go test out both shapes of the croissant. I might need to stop in Italy for the cappuccino. And since I like yogurt for breakfast too, I might have to go to Greece and Bulgaria to settle which ones better.
Those straight croissants look suspiciously like the ones I see in American bakeries. Conspiracy?
Yes, that is a cappuccino with the curved croissant. Perhaps it’s an indication of a closer alliance growing between French and Italian breakfasts as the UK and Britain negotiate over new treaty terms…
These matters are too weighty to be settled by a single judge—a panel of judges is needed. My bag is always packed…
Rob…are we flying Norwegian? perhaps we can check their breakfast on the way…
Perhaps that’s a result of the U.S. and Britain sharing a “special relationship,” which as Prime Minister Hugh Grant famously pointed out can be a “baaaad relationship.”
Sacrebleu!! I’m reading an article about famous French baker, Frédéric Pichard, (best croissant in Paris 2011). I direct readers to the photo of the croissant served to the author in the courtyard of the bakery.http://www.farine-mc.com/2014/…rederic-pichard.htmlCould this mean M. Pichard, too, should be thrown out of the European Union?
I feel it is my duty to sacrifice an hour while I’m in the city in April to seek out this misshapen example of the French baker’s art at 88 rue Cambronne, and witness the outrage for myself. Five years ago, when judged best in Paris, were they shaped thusly? I promise to search and destroy…several, no doubt.
Sacre bleu, indeed! PortMoresby has uncovered a dirty little secret which will not go unexposed for Gumbo readers! Here is the offending baked good, which perhaps should be called not croissant but ‘bâtonant.’
While I would not hold its shape against it, I might hold a bit of cherry preserves against it…