The French pastry chef, no stranger to controversy, sees his latest creation greeted by a barrage of mocking and even caustic comments.
Here he starts again. After his Yule log with the silhouette of a snowman melted in the sun, his strawberry tart with hulls at 80 euros and his galette des rois described as a scam, pastry chef Cédric Grolet is once again shaking up the Internet. This time, with ham and butter. The chef crowned best pastry chef in the world in 2018 by the World's 50 Best sells his version of the archetypal French snack for the modest sum of 30 euros. Enough to arouse indignation but also the hilarity of Internet users who have fun with the eccentric silhouette of the sandwich. Decryption.
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A sandwich with exceptional products…
In front of Cédric Grolet's boutique opened in 2019, in the Opéra district of Paris, the line of pastry lovers continues unabated. To the network stars, Saint-Honoré, yuzu pavlova, carved fruits, was added a ham and butter. In a video published on November 3 on TikTok, influencer Carla Sofiya reviews the sandwich: “It's not worth the price, but it's a very good sandwich,” she concludes. Immediate snowball effect. Internet users are outraged by its price: “It’s theft,” comments one, “the price of a dish in a restaurant is serious,” panics another.
Note that to treat yourself to a butter ham in France, you have to pay, on average, €3.04, reports the Sirha Food website, the trade fair specializing in the food industry. At least for a classic sandwich, the polar opposite of the proposal from the 39-year-old star chef, delivering a version composed of a chestnut flour baguette, containing Périgord black truffle, Comté cheese, Paris ham in chiffonade, pickles, and of course, butter. Exceptional products that weigh heavily on the wallet, like the black Périgord truffle, in season between December and February, sold at €1,180 per kilo for a 1st category product, we learn on the house's website. Mérigots truffière. What, perhaps, justifies the price of the sandwich?
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…and an eccentric silhouette
In addition to its expensive price, Cédric Grolet's butter ham is also mocked for its silhouette, with its small baguette, shaped with very pointed ends. A shape which has earned it many comparisons on social networks: “It’s a trompe-l’oeil of a medieval shoe”, “The sandwich is Aladdin’s shoe”, “A slipper. A babwich”, “30 euros per canoe”, “the tip of the bread can pierce your stomach”, Internet users have fun. Not enough to offend the chef, accustomed to storms surrounding his creations and who continues, tirelessly, to multiply the videos for his 8.5 million subscribers on TikTok.
