Patient zero was Cedric Grolet. Born in 1985, French pastry chef, on Instagram alone he has surpassed the 14 million followers. Cook magazine defines it Pastry Starsomething more than a master pastry chef. For a few years now, one of the canonical videos that all the creators of my algorithm seem to be forced to make is the trip to Paris to his pastry shop to try realistic fruit: single portions the size of a basketball shoe which from the outside look like a ceramic reproduction of a fruit and inside have a filling made with the pulp of the fruit itself. Wow.
It is yet to be seen whether he was born the trend or recipe first. From Cedric Grolet’s laboratory the epidemic of realistic fruit exploded and the spreaders were social media. It’s perfect for a short video. It is sold in single portions, often individually packaged. She is very photogenic. The shell is often made of white chocolate, then painted with food coloring. It breaks at the first bite, to immediately reveal its filling. All great for a reaction.
Cedric doesn’t give away his fruit. A portion costs around 20 euros. Plenty for a dessert but not too much for a stop on a trip to Paris. And perhaps, like the Labubu, Cedric Grolet’s fruit is also a indicator of the crisis based on the theory of lipstick effect: In a recession, consumers give up actually expensive goods for indulge in small luxuries. From Cedric Grolet’s official website we see that his stores are in Paris, Saint Tropez, Monaco, London and Singapore. He hadn’t reckoned with it Italian entrepreneurial spirit.
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Realistic fruit on the counters of pastry shops in Italy
Realistic fruit does not have a patent. Cedric Grolet made it famous, also accompanying it with well-constructed videos. Usually it takes huge quantities of fruit and cooks them in videos seasoned with a discreet editing work. However, it is certainly not one of his patents, desserts that resemble fruits are a pastry classic even if there was only marzipan inside. In the last few weeks, since I started paying attention to it, I have found realistic fruit in places in the cities I have been to, Naples and Milan. The phenomenon exploded: social media was filled with reports of Italian pastry shops who began serving the realistic fruit on their counters.
The recipes are more or less the same. The tastes too. Perhaps the dimensions are a little smaller than the originals Cedric Grolet. And there’s also one missing a little attention to the final yieldthe shapes are more irregular. Yet the Italian variant of realistic fruit is actually landed with us. Ready to be photographed, filmed, eaten and obviously commented on. Prices seem a little lower. Let’s see receipts between 7 and 12 euros per piece. At the moment it is found in many pastry shops, there is not yet a brand that has established itself.
The thing that makes you smile is that the videos of those who taste these desserts in Italy seem to replicate the millions of contents made on the premises of Grolet in France. Same sentences: “It looks like an almond and it also tastes like an almond!”. And then: “This is a fruit explosion.” Inevitable: “It’s almost a shame to eat it”. The videos are a bit food porn, a bit ASMR, with the sound of nails on the shell and the crunch with which the fruit breaks at the first bite to reveal the soft filling.
In the end we have come to eat what can be sold well on social media. The trend for realistic fruit seems to follow that of smash burger. They are dishes with flavors that are easy to appreciate, colorful and beautiful to look at. Small luxuries that you can afford at a good price. All this usually seasoned with packaging in which the name of the place is repeated endlessly: so it’s easier to read it in videos.
