Milk Bar Renames Its Famous Crack Pie After Complaints That Lighted An Epidemic
The recipe remains the same. But the name of the Milk Bars signature dessert is getting a change that some critics say is long overdue. Crack Pie – the brand name of the chain's buttery, sugary cake – now becomes Milk Bar Pie.
The name was a reference to crack cocaine – gag is that the cake was as addictive as the drug. However, a growing chorus of critics has pointed out that the name sheds light on a serious drug pharmacology, and one that had an extremely large impact on African American society. The ringingness that people throw around the word "crack" is not the same with other substances. We call no desserts "opioid cake", although the substances claiming predominantly white life are also highly addictive.
Last year, Boston called Globe's Devra First out chef Christina Tosi's use of the Word in an essay titled "There is nothing sweet about crack pie." "It is a moment to take into account the way we talk about food, to stop talking easily about addiction and to equate it with delicacy," she wrote. San Francisco Chronicle Food Critic Soleil Ho puts the word on her list of "Words that you will never see me use in restaurant reviews," writes, "No matter how delicious something may be, the effect on me is nothing near what the crack makes to people and their families. "Ho has also promised not to use the term" addictive "in his letter.
[Soleil Ho is a young, queer woman of color who wants to redefine food criticism]
In a statement on the Milk Bar website, Tosi did not refer to the reason for the term criticism, which annoyed some critics . "Our mission is after all to spread joy and inspirational celebration. The name Crack Pie lacks this mission," Tosi wrote in a note to his team. She wrote that the old name was "getting in the way of letting gooey, buttery piece bring happiness – my only goal to create the case in the first place."
Other restaurants that use the word "crack" are starting to leave it as well. The gastropub chain HopCat renamed its "crack fries" in December. "While the name Crack Fries was meant to be heavy, drug abuse is not a joke," said Mark Gray, CEO of BarFly Ventures, HopCat's parent company, in a YouTube video and blog post. "The drug addiction has destroyed many of the communities we serve."
The old name still has some defenders on Twitter, but many people – including many in the food media – applaud the change. Tosi statement said the new name will roll out in the Milk Bars 16 bakeries in the US and Canada in the coming weeks. A search for crack pie is already redirected to the Milk Bar Pie when you click on the official Milk Bar page.
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