Debuting this weekend at Smorgasburg in Williamsburg is the latest chapter in a never ending dough-ry: the “spaghetti doughnut.”
Courtesy of a noodle-peddling vendor called Pop Pasta, this $5 treat riffs off the Neapolitan tradition of spaghetti pie. Leftover pasta is combined with egg and cheese, then baked. It’s like spaghetti, but a doughnut. Food and Wine profoundly described it as “just baked pasta, you guys.”
Like the ramen burger before it, this mangia monster has a distinct place in the Frankenfoodie industrial complex. Two types of indulgent food are combined to make another type of indulgent food. Instagrams ensue.
After the cronut though, the hybrid-doughnut trend began to follow a predictable, three-part arc.
First, the infatuation phase: The cronut — a hybrid of a doughnut and a croissant — was admittedly delicious. It was a happy, simple time.
Then came the copycat stage. In desperate attempts to grasp the same hashtag-love the cronut achieved, similar doughnut hybrids followed. There was the sushi doughnut, the cinnamon roll doughnut, the rainbow cookie doughnut — even a meat doughnut.
From this, chefs learned that foodies would spend their disposable incomes on pretty much anything, so long as it took the shape of a doughnut. Key to the alterna-doughnut’s success is how it preys on the millennial generation’s insatiable hunger for picturesque nostalgia food. The hype around these fried treats is almost as crucial as their actual taste.
With spaghetti doughnut, it would appear we’ve reached the final stage of doughnut madness: disillusionment. No one can truly know the limits of a food trend that’s so deeply established in our Instagram feeds. But the latest addition of spaghetti suggests we may simply be running out of foods to turn into other foods.