Trends

Snippy Bloggers and Sassy Columnists Need to Stop Dismissing Cupcakes

Photo: Tammy Green

So says the Globe, which today rhapsodizes about the most undead culinary trend of all time: cupcakes. But we wanna know: Why must we protest so much about the legitimacy of cupcakes? We get it! They’re tasty! They’re sweet! They’re less controversial than whoopie pies! To be clear: Nobody’s trying to rid the world of cupcakes! Yet, still …

The Globe puts a somber time line on cupcakes’ heyday: “Cupcake fad: Born July 9, 2000, on ‘Sex and the City.’ Died Aug. 20, 2006, during columnist Joel Stein’s anti-cupcake rant in Time magazine.’ Thankfully, we should feel very fortunate to reside in Boston, because we’re cupcake renegades. Pastry shops and bakeries, warriors in this anti-cupcake uprising, have “brazenly ignored the news that the cupcake fad is over.” Yes, folks, it’s risky to sell cupcakes, but someone’s gotta go out on a limb and do it. As the Globe points out, the latest brave soldier in this war on cupcakes is Todd English. And if he can’t handle controversy, well, who can? (Per the story, he’s “banking on the continued popularity of the confection.” Pressure’s on, cupcake lovers.)

Meanwhile, San Francisco has declared the cupcake trend oversaturated: “At some point the line got crossed and it went too far,” says Leith Steel, a manager at a lifestyle firm, apparently serious.

But our favorite quote in the piece comes from a tweedy-seeming fellow named Ken Ross, munching on a Red Velvet cupcake at Sweet: “I’m 58 years old, and I’ve always eaten cupcakes. I don’t care if a bunch of New York dames made them popular, I’m always going to eat cupcakes. Whether they’re trendy or not, I don’t care.’’

Go on with your bad cupcake self, Ken! You’ve earned it. (And please, continue to inject the word “dames” into conversation whenever possible.) We can fawn over crack pies. We can call whoopie pies the next big thing. We can even dress ‘em up with bacon. But the humble, untainted cupcake will shine on.

Yep, some trends simply fail to die a spectacular death, and that’s OK. We think people just need to stop killing-then-resurrecting cupcakes and simply let them flourish. Because we’re pretty sure that they’re as un-killable as the next ‘Sex and the City’ sequel. The post-consumption guilt is probably the same, though.

In Boston, the Cupcake Fad Is Still Growing
[Globe]

Related: Pies Are the New Cupcakes Are the New Bacon?

Snippy Bloggers and Sassy Columnists Need to Stop Dismissing Cupcakes