The Tar Pit

The title is indeed a paraphrase of Neagu Djuvara's volume; but instead of discussing the nineteenth century and Phanariotes -- I've already done this a while ago, for the record -- let us amuse ourselves with tales from the beginning of the second quarter of Our Lord's twenty-first. Some haters may make entirely spurious and unasked for remarks that I've already spent too much virtual ink on the matter, and that Romania's not worth half of the attention that I'm giving it; to which The Tar Pit editorial board will answer that you don't get to decide what's "too much" over here, and that the Trumps, the Putins and the Xis, while bearing a whole lot more responsibility on their shoulders, are just as representative of today's world as the Dans, Bolojans or whomever the fuck -- not less, and certainly not more, sorry.

So anyway, in today's episode of the Reality TV Show, Romanians, or Bucharestians to be more specific, have been quarreling, of all things, over a subject that can be superficially reduced to: butter versus margarine, or, if you prefer it the other way, margarine versus butter.

More precisely, some dude doing PR for a coquet place near the central square known as Amzei, decided to make a film located near the neighbouring patisserie, accusing the latter's customers that them margarine-consuming peasants (my words, not his) are nowhere near as elevated as the butter-eating snobs (my words, not his) who cross the door of the former establishment. Or, more precisely: that the merdenea baked by Patiseria Amzei using margarine is shit compared to the butter-baked croissant over at the neighbouring Mița Biciclista, whom the PR guy represented.

Unfortunately, the PR stunt recoiled upon the dude and his snob restaurant, and everyone on the so-called social medias went berserk, with the sole purpose of aiding nea Mihai and his old-fashioned communist-style bakery¹. Moreover, to attest to the virality of this sudden merdenea-versus-croissant phenomenon, politicians supposedly took public positions regarding the event, and meanwhile long queues have been forming over at Patiseria Amzei. So in a sense the PR stunt worked, only not for the initially intended beneficiary. Some even went as far as analyzing the phenomenon from a psyop standpoint, which in today's world, I mean... yeah, sure, why not -- that's why you have Geostationary Truth Machines, and you lot'd better quote me on that, since you are far from being the first using control theory to discuss social engineering.

Anyways, this long exposure of context aside, I myself am more interested in the subject from a cultural point of view.

On one side, take the Mița Biciclista establishment: Mița Biciclista was the nickname of an early twentieth century slut otherwise known as Maria Mihăescu. Yes, a "slut", I said; contrary to the public opinion of 2026, I don't view the term in a pejorative sense, as I think sluts have their role in the affairs of society, just like everyone else. Supposedly this particular slut fucked King Ferdinand himself, which is how she supposedly got the establishment where, more recently, Niculușcă et al. opened their restaurant. The place is nice, historical and all, but more importantly: Mița the Bikerider was nicknamed this way because she was representative of the more "progressive values" of the time, of which I suppose bike riding was but one. I'll just note that at least to my eye it looks like meanwhile we've regressed, and sluts don't get the same special treatment as they used to a century ago, which is a shame on today's liberals if you ask me. So don't ask me; instead, go and buy your favourite OnlyFans girl a house in the centre of Bucharest, her slutty cunt deserves it.

As for Patiseria Amzei, it's a communist-era place of the Cofetăria Aroma kind, which somehow manages to survive capitalism. But as I've mentioned in the first footnote, there's nothing special about it, Bucharest is just full of these little places. The important item in this story is not the pastry shop, it's the pastry itself; so allow me further to deconstruct the merdenea. By the way, the word itself comes from the Ottoman Turkish merdane, which is the name of the wooden rolling pin used to soften the dough. My good reader, Romanians are a fucking odd bunch: they've named the food after the instrument, but then the instrument itself is called in Romanian sucitor, which comes from the verb "a suci", which has nothing to do with the Ottoman origin -- so let's leave this one to the linguists. Moreover, Romanians are a perverse bunch when it comes to foodmaking; for example, they've taken the Turkish kebab recipe, partially replaced lamb with pork -- which is haram, yes; problem? -- and added baking soda to the minced meat mix. And this is what they call their national dish nowadays, so be careful what shit you talk about it.

The same goes more or less with the merdenea, which at its core is most likely² a Levantine dish of the pie-filled-with-cheese type, made out of flour, water, salt, vinegar, egg, cheese, and, lastly, some fat matter used to grease the dough and keep the layers nicely packed and lubricated during the actual baking. Back in the day and in the space where the initially recipe was conceived, people used vegetable, e.g. olive, oils for the grease, but more recently they use margarine, which, oui oui mon ami, is also the only French part in the whole affair, and in this sense the thing which brings it closest to, instead of apart from, the croissant. Other than that, the recipe itself is I can't really say how old, but I'm pretty sure it predates the French stuff by a good few centuries.

And the irony of our story is that, between Europe, the US and Călin fucking Georgescu, the whole lot of pro-Europeans on Instagram et al. went with... the sovereigntist option! How's that for an "Extended Social Engineering" analysis? Simply put, Romanians are being primed... scratch that, they don't even need to be primed, since they've always been voting with their stomach! And let's be frank, when you're actually hungry and not just looking to fuck around with food, the merdenea is hands down more nourishing than the croissant.

Post Scriptum: The subject was meanwhile consumed while I wrote and edited this, but let me tell you, I've been a couple more times near Patiseria Amzei, and folks are still filling the queues waiting to get their pastry. Go nea Mihai!

Filed under: olds.
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