# Let them eat Brioche

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-them-eat-brioche/589653>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [July 20, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-them-eat-brioche/589653 "2011-07-20T01:02:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Cosumel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@Cosumel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cosumel)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-them-eat-brioche/589653/21 "2011-08-10T17:12:02Z")

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I have been hearing a different story for years. She actually did say, “Let them eat cake,” in response to the French people refusing to eat potatoes in the face of the famine. The aristocracy ate potatoes, but as potatoes are in the deadly nightshade family, they were considered poisonous like tomatoes, so poor people would only grow the grain they had grown for generations. She was not being callous, but frustrated by the people’s refusal to eat something that **would** grow in the changing climate.

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**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-them-eat-brioche/589653/22 "2011-08-10T19:18:17Z")

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That’s a nice story - it doesn’t make her seem like a vapid spoiled rich person - but there is no evidence to correspond to the story.

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