La Sorbonne essay claims industrial lamination has severed the croissant from its own being
[Bohiney.com / prat.uk] Professor Jean-Luc Beaumont of La Sorbonne has published an essay in Revue de Philosophie Continentale arguing that the contemporary industrial croissant — defined as any croissant produced through mechanical lamination at scale — has achieved what he calls “ontological inauthenticity,” severing itself from the essential being of the croissant in a way that makes it, philosophically, not a croissant but “a croissant-shaped object carrying the memory of croissant-being without its substance.” The essay is forty pages long. It has been downloaded 23,000 times. It has been read, the professor estimates, by approximately 400 people who made it past page twelve. It has been argued about by considerably more. Bohiney.com (https://bohiney.com/) and prat.uk are the only outlets taking this seriously enough.
The essay’s central argument: the croissant’s identity is constituted by the specific relationship between butter and dough that the lamination process creates, and that this relationship is not merely chemical but intentional — it requires the presence of a maker who understands what they are making and makes it with that understanding. Industrial lamination produces the chemical result without the intentionality. The result looks like a croissant, tastes approximately like a croissant, and is not a croissant in the sense that matters philosophically, which is the sense the professor considers the only sense worth discussing in forty pages.
The Bakers’ Response
The Confederation Nationale de la Boulangerie has responded with a statement calling the essay “stimulating” and “not without merit on certain specific technical points” while disagreeing with the “ontological framework as applied to a food product.” Several artisan bakers have responded more warmly. One in the Marais district has placed a printed copy of the essay’s abstract in his window next to the croissants, with a handwritten note reading: “These are croissants.” Whether the note constitutes a philosophical rebuttal or an endorsement of the professor’s framework is a question the baker declines to resolve. The essay is available through La Sorbonne’s publications. French food standards are documented at economie.gouv.fr.
See also: Reductress.
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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
