# When did you first hear of croissants? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 6, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064 "2011-07-06T17:50:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/41 "2011-07-07T00:20:11Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > None, really, although I saw an episode of The French Chef where Julia made them. I got the impression that they were really strange and foreign back then. They were. Croissan’wiches are edible with some mayo and mustard, but mayo and mustard make many things better. ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/42 "2011-07-07T01:27:56Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > When I was a petit garcon we visited Paris. I was 7 or 8. For breakfast in the hotel we had fresh croissants. Even now when I eat a fresh croissant I have vivid memories of Paris. Croissants have become a more mundane, common food here in the interim but they still have that effect on my memory the odd time I eat them. To be honest, I have no recollection before that whether croissants were easy to find here, just Paris was the first time I became aware of them. Almost exactly my experience as well. I was 7 or 8, in Paris with my family, and we had breakfast consisting of croissant, hot cocoa, coffee and juice. I liked the croissant, but didn’t care much for the “exotic” flavors of stuff like orange marmalade. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/43 "2011-07-07T01:32:01Z")
I’ve never _not_ known about them. Not hard to get good ones in Montreal. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/44 "2011-07-07T01:41:13Z")
I don’t remember not knowing what they were. I wasn’t alive in 1970 but for m, born in the 80s, croissants were not weird or foreign in any way. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/45 "2011-07-07T01:48:05Z")
I had heard about croissants, but only had crescent rolls. It wasn’t until I honeymooned in Montreal in 1982 that I actually tasted one (and American croissants are just a cheap knockoff of the real thing). ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/46 "2011-07-07T01:54:49Z")
As some others have said, I don’t remember not knowing what they were. I think my grandmother used to serve them to us. (Born in 1969.) ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/47 "2011-07-07T01:58:33Z")
hold it! now i remember, it was in that reader’s digest article about bread. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/48 "2011-07-07T02:13:27Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Can you still buy a Croissan’wich? I never heard of them before this thread. Don’t bother. Burger King’s “croissants” are just slightly modified hamburger buns. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/49 "2011-07-07T02:47:24Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > When Burger King came out with the Croissanwich, I think. I was 5 at the time, living in Huntington, WV. Oh God, same here. I was in Wisconsin, but yeah, the King was my first introduction to the croissant. Late 80s. /And I’ve been to France! That was much later, but still. //Pity I had to learn about this from a fast-food chain. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/50 "2011-07-07T02:51:33Z")
I’ve known about them as far back as I remember–born in 1976. I knew about them and ate them long before Burger King’s abomination was invented. ---
**Author:** ![beartato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9d8465/32.png) [@beartato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beartato)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/51 "2011-07-07T05:13:57Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > Don’t bother. Burger King’s “croissants” are just slightly modified hamburger buns. Oh god. This is bringing back a horrible, repressed memory of a high school class field trip to Alberta and a continental breakfast at the shitty chain hotel. Costco croissants. Margarine-laden, greasy to the touch, SOFT outside, sweet tasting… ew ew ew. I imagine that’s what the Burger King Cro-Sandwich is surrounded by? ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/52 "2011-07-07T05:38:23Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > When Burger King came out with the Croissanwich, I think. I was 5 at the time, living in Huntington, WV. Same here, but I don’t remember how old I was. Would’ve been early 80’s, I guess, so 10-ish? Joe ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/53 "2011-07-07T08:30:51Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > And when did you first have one, and where were you living at the time? Around 1977 IIRC (I must have been 5 or 6 at the time), same time as I had my first one, and I was living in Cape Town. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/54 "2011-07-07T10:02:34Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > I can state definitively that I did not. Me, too. I’d say I first learned of them around, say, age 7, or 1992. They were at Western Sizzlin’, a local buffet/salad bar place that had just put in a bakery bar. I’d eaten them before that in the form of pigs in a blanket (with those tiny sausages, not hotdogs) but I didn’t know what they were called then. I just called them blankets. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/55 "2011-07-07T11:27:04Z")
> [@beartato](#): > > Oh god. This is bringing back a horrible, repressed memory of a high school class field trip to Alberta and a continental breakfast at the shitty chain hotel. Costco croissants. Margarine-laden, greasy to the touch, SOFT outside, sweet tasting… ew ew ew. I imagine that’s what the Burger King Cro-Sandwich is surrounded by? Not even as good as a Costco croissant. In my memory, the Burger King croissants started out being pretty decent (for fast food, anyway) but at some point they went cheap, and the “croissant” part of the sandwich became, like I said, a [slightly modified hamburger bun](http://smartcanucks.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/croissan27wichegg_cheese2.jpg). Now it could be that my memory is playing tricks and it has been the same horrible bun all along. ---
**Author:** ![Azeotrope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/0ea827/32.png) [@Azeotrope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azeotrope)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/56 "2011-07-07T18:28:09Z")
As to the history/location etc. I am in PA, and first exposure was early 80’s (not sure exactly) ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/57 "2011-07-08T00:00:11Z")
Since I have memory of bread (born in 1970). Peru. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2011, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/58 "2011-07-08T12:16:07Z")
September 1970, Paris France. Why? What is significant about 1970? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/59 "2011-07-09T03:36:04Z")
> [@GameHat](#): > > Oh God, same here. I was in Wisconsin, but yeah, the King was my first introduction to the croissant. Late 80s… But if you were in Wisconsin, you could’ve walked down State St. in Madison and ducked into a little french restaurant called The Bakers’ Rooms of the Ovens of Brittany. Where you could watch the very different people\* making very different rolls, buttering and folding dough into 54 layers. \*an offshoot of the Findhorn Community in Scotland (remember the people moving boulders with their minds in _My Dinner With André_?), they moved to Madison en masse to make croissants. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064/60 "2011-07-09T21:32:24Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > I don’t remember _not_ knowing of croissants. I might as well be answering this about toast, or doughnuts. This. They were probably the third bread product I was introduced to, after sliced loaves and chapattis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-hear-of-croissants/588064.md?page=4)