Well, kids, once upon a time there was a pastry, and that pastry’s name was Cronut.
The Cronut
They came stumbling out of SoHo, hollow-eyed, dusted in crumbs, carrying a word on their lips that no had heard before. "Cronut," they murmured, crossing themselves, looking to the sky. "CRO-nut, like a CROissant, but also like a doughNUT."
By the time we saw the contagion spreading among us, there was nothing to be done. Profiteers rode the wave of hysteria; panic ruled. What mattered was never the pastry itself; it was the image of ourselves — now monsters — reflected in the rings of glaze.
Macey J. Foronda / BuzzFeed
The Brussels Sprout
This year, like the year before it, was the biggest yet for the small but mighty Brussel. Newly awakened acolytes, feverish with devotion, continued to join a pro-Brassica movement already in full swing. Even the Dutch may finally be learning to love their neighboring Belgian sprout. Take flight, tiny cabbage, to 2014 and beyond!
Emily Fleischaker / Via buzzfeed.com
The Oreo
Which other cookie invented in 1912 can claim to have gotten this kind of press coverage in the new millennium? It was the tweet that launched a thousand other vaguely similar tweets. It was the bravest #brand of all.
i360 / Via buzzfeed.com
MSG
This, we proclaimed, was the year of "peak umami." And, as America's Fermenter-in-Chief David Chang reminded us, just because we don't know we're eating MSG doesn't mean we aren't eating it pretty much all the time: “If I say, ‘That’s got MSG in it,’ no one’s going to say, ‘Well, that sounds delicious.’ But if I put Doritos on it…for fuck’s sake, Taco Bell’s marketing it directly.”
Speaking of which...
Justine Zwiebel / Via buzzfeed.com
