What's the most pretentious cooking related thing you've seen? Mines pic related...

>available at a major fast food chain
I dunno man, there's some guy here who keeps ranting about "sandwich artists" and the cucked fast food places that DARE carry the new avocado in an affront to all shut-ins everywhere

You should revise that to "was available at a major fast food chain as of 1964"

Veeky Forums is divided between the few who actually enjoy cooking, and the mouthbreathing fat fucks who only like what their moms fed them when they were kids.

Why do people on Veeky Forums seem to think avocado is some kind of recent trend?

live ants as part of your $300 meal

Its marketed as that in many places.

>300 dollar meal
>wanting ordinary shit done slightly better
You're just not in the market famalam

From what understand, it wasn't common in the flyover states (outside high end grocery stores in larger cities) until NAFTA, and as a result the more trailer trashy types in those areas had never tasted it until some fast food chains started offering it on menus.

These are the same people whose employability is greatly affected by whether there are undocumented migrant workers nearby, so they associate it with the general decline in social status for whites with a high school diploma at best.

So in seriousness, what makes the hand grater better than the grinders on the left?

I am pretty sure it's just a self-aware cute thing. The difference would be shape and rustic appeal because you're getting it from one bigass chunk of salt. The kinda thing that's sort of a joke item but stylish enough to presented straight faced, I guess

Got it, so something wannabe cooks buy because it impresses normies and makes them look better than they are.

Are these like those salt blocks you cook on? Has anyone ever used those? Himalayan salt seems like a big scam but cooking on a salt block seems like it could be interesting.

I doubt it. It's kinda like buying square plates. It's not necessarily perceived as better by the people buying them, it's just appealing to them. People(normies) like to accesorize.

>accessorize
REEEEEEE

It is pretentious. It is going to cost a lot more, have no perceivable difference in taste, take more effort, and will no doubt be presented as if were different than normal salt.

That being said, I'd buy it if it were priced the same as normal salt. I like colorful items, and I would use a mortar instead of grater so I could control the size of the crystals.

Hoe would the items in that pic be pretentious at a high end food boutique? Isn't that exactly the kind of stuff they sell at places like that?

What am I missing here?

>It is pretentious. It is going to cost a lot more, have no perceivable difference in taste, take more effort, and will no doubt be presented as if were different than normal salt.
So what? That doesn't make it pretentious to someone with the disposable income to blow looking for little luxuries. To someone like that it would just be novel and fun.

...

Neither the setting it is used in nor the person using it have any bearing on whether an item is pretentious. Paying a significantly higher amount for an item that has no perceivable difference in quality or function makes it pretentious.

>Paying a significantly higher amount for an item that has no perceivable difference in quality or function makes it pretentious.
Says the guy who spends 11 hours a week arguing about the latest video card on /g/

It is pretentious. It costs more, requires more effort, and yet produces the same results.

You should review the definition of "pretentious" because you seem really confused

pre·ten·tious.

[prəˈten(t)SHəs]
ADJECTIVE
1.attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed

He's using it right

So if I pay 35 cents extra for a pack of gum that has a label that I like, it makes me pretentious?

Or does that only happen when the dollar value to "this amuses me" quotient exceeds what you personally deem to be within your means?

You are wrong. Pretentiousness is entirely a matter of putting on airs - trying to appear more worldly or of a high social stature than you are.

For a price insensitive customer who enjoys shopping at cute little boutiques the fancy overpriced salt isn't the least bit pretentious, because it's EXACTLY what someone like them would buy. To them the experience of shopping for it and enjoying it is worth the cost, because the cost doesn't mean much to them.

For a middle class person trying to feed a family on a budget buying this stuff would be pretentious, because it would be wasting their money. Their only motivation for buying it would be to participate in something they associate with people richer then they are. That's pretentious.

A thing really can't be pretentious. Pretentiousness is a matter of personal motivation.

No he isn't, because as I said here it's a matter of motivation. Someone with the money to spend might choose to pay more for aesthetic reasons alone. They don't want to shop in the stores where badly dressed people line up to pay for discount shit. To them that's depressing. To them it might be worth the opportunity cost of going to a boutique and getting personal attention from the staff, because they enjoy that experience more.

If you can afford to shop in such places doing so isn't the least bit pretentious.

>You are wrong. Pretentiousness is entirely a matter of putting on airs - trying to appear more worldly or of a high social stature than you are.

see

Since when is Veeky Forums full of grammarians?

I know this is really painful to accept, but there are actually people who are more worldly and have higher social stature than you

In fact, it's increasingly evident that this is most people

>So if I pay 35 cents extra for a pack of gum that has a label that I like, it makes me pretentious?

Nope. But if you paid extra because that label would impress someone else--someone other than you--then that would be.

Pretentiousness is about showing off to others.

Ok, got it. So if I buy some gum, and then show it to my coworker and say "hey get a load of this gum", then it makes me a pretentious hipster. I should keep it to myself because fun is a private experience, never to be shared with others. To do so would be putting on airs

see
Someone of a higher social status, is more worldly and has a greater appreciation of good food because they've eaten in many good restaurants is not the the least bit pretentious shopping at a high end boutique.

Sure, some of the stuff they buy might seem like Emperor's New Clothes to you. Of course that would be the case. Value for your dollar is a much higher priority for you than it is for them. YOU shopping in these places would be pretentious. For them it isn't.

What is the objective difference between this salt, and the salt you can buy for less than $1? If you answer that without referring to someone's income, you may have a point.

>Value for your dollar is a much higher priority for you than it is for them
This is actually false, though. Poor people just have a different set of priorities. There was a piece in the Economist about a year ago covering spending priorities between poor people in countries with zero economic mobility vs rich people in the developed world. Some guy figured out that it made more sense for poor people to blow what we might consider an absurd amount on a TV so the village can watch soccer together. From our ivory towers we might say "no you should send your kids to school" but those kids aren't going anywhere. But the TV brings the people together and provides a much-needed escape from the day to day life of grinding poverty

The guy claiming salt is pretentious probably has some priority in his life that a well off person would consider incredibly pointless and irresponsible - it perhaps even might be taken as evidence that poor people deserve to be poor

Only of you're trying to impress your coworker by showing him a gum that shows a sophistication or wealth you don't actually possess. Otherwise you'd best offer him a piece so he's not confused about why you're showing him gum.

>a sophistication or wealth you don't actually possess
>a 35 cent pack of gum
You've lost the argument, just give it up

That's not pretentious, that's for stupid rich morons.

Style

It's not income per se, but the standards of what the buyer would consider normal. If you normally shop at boutiques and specialty shops then the stuff they sell there is normal to you. If you normally shop at the supermarket that stuff might seem pretentious.
Each socioeconomic group has their own class "tells", and it's much more sophisticated that the actual cost of something. People take their social cues from their peer group. Pretentiousness is taking social cues from the peer group above you just to make yourself seem of higher status than you are.

Bullshit. If you lived in a part of the world where you and your peers were making only a couple bucks a day a 35 cent pack of gum bought for the purpose of showing off that you could afford it would be pretentious.

> If you lived in a part of the world where you and your peers were making only a couple bucks a day
But I don't, and as we've established, there actually are people for whom buying a salt grater that costs 10x more than a carton of Morton is still such an infinitesimally trivial fraction of their disposable income that there is nothing pretentious about buying it. Let alone the salt itself being somehow inherently pretentious.

You are very desperately to be technically correct, so if it makes you feel better, you can imagine that I'm a goat herder in Botswana or whatever (do they have goats there? let's pretend they do) posting on Veeky Forums from my mobile phone.

PEOPLE. It's a wink wink nudge nudge funny eccentric item. It's literally called fratesalt, it is self-aware and for the novelty

>self-aware

This is literally a damage control term.

>funny
>for the novelty
I wear grey jumpsuits every day and eat gruel, fun is pretentious

*gratesalt

The only damage control going on right now is people who cannot wrap their minds around the idea that there are no people on earth for whom paying $50 for a food-related gag gift is a life or death decision

So you figured out that you're not going to suddenly be accepted by the Philips Exeter/Choate crowd just because you bought something at Williams-Sonoma. Someone better give you the Nobel Prize for sociology, wow what a discovery

You're defending your purchase of a stupid item pretty hard. Perhaps you should step away for a few minutes and calm down.

I'm well off. I don't mind paying extra shekels if it actually makes a difference, but there is no difference. I do like the economist reference tho. I have my degree in economics.

>You've lost the argument, just give it up
He didn't. He's applying the objective definition to your retarded example and then you reee'd because your example didn't work. Now you're trying to duck out because you've run out of argumentative ammunition.

No U
What do you mean there is no difference? You can't even use the goddamm salt without grating it first. How much more different do you want?

The sifference is in you enjoying the novelty of grated salt from a large prettty rock

My example worked fine, the only way it doesn't work is if you pretend I'm a goat herder in Botswana, which, admittedly, I am. Sorry, you were right all along.

My point is that pretentiousness is entirely in the eye of the beholder. So you're not going to get a consensus on symbols of it when we're in a place where people of very different peer groups interact.

Hell even in my own family I've seen it. Some relatives are well off and well traveled, others not so much. I know for a fact many normal things to the former seem incredibly pretentious to the latter.

I look at OP pic and think, "I wouldn't spend extra dough on finishing salt unless it was for a gift." And I think this way because I've been gifted finishing salt and enjoyed using it.

Nice strawman. It didn't work because it was over-simplified to the point where it was obvious you didn't want anyone to demonstrate how pretentiousness could be applicable as opposed to, say, in OP's pic.

Seems like you're the one who's desperate to be right.

So I have to do more work and pay more money for the same result because they market the product as being better than regular salt? That's the definition of pretentious.

>That doesn't make it pretentious

>pre·ten·tious
>prəˈten(t)SHəs/
>adjective
>attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

Yes. By definition, it is pretentious.

Buying it in that form is totally unnecessary, so I would say yes it is pretentious.

Quite fancy buying the blue stuff for a bit of fun though, maybe I am pretentious too...

>Nice strawman
Like with 'pretentious', you don't seem to understand what that means
You said there is no difference. Is there a difference, or is there not a difference?

I don't know how "they" market the product because I have never seen it before this thread. Perhaps you can show me the marketing materials so I can understand your reasoning. All I see is a somewhat silly presentation for a block of rock salt, which, to me, makes me assume they are appealing to the kind of person who gets a kick out of food novelties. I'm not reading into it any further than that.

>It's not pretentious because I'm assuming it's a novelty

And that is where the disagreement is. Nothing about that says novelty to me. It screams faux high-end like it is some special unique product which it is not.

I'll agree perception is the key thing but I'm willing to wager more people will perceive that product the way I do than you do.

Not if buying that product would be a normal thing for your peer group. Let's extend the analogy to cars, and maybe it will make more sense. Say you work a professional job, live in a nice neighborhood and go out to eat at nice restaurants every now and then. You only drive your car to shop and go to work. A second hand 2006 Nissan Versa would totally fit your needs. But your neighbors are all driving around in 300 Series Mercedes and BMWs. You'd look like a loser driving around in an old entry level Nissan, so buying the BMW isn't the least bit pretentious.

But buying a Maserati to impress your neighbors would be pretentious.

For your uses the differences between these cars is marginal at best. But whether your choice of them is pretentious depends ENTIRELY on the norms of your peer group.

Not that user, but I agree with you.I t depends why you buy it. If you buy it to proudly display to your friends how "sophisticated and talented in culinary matters" you are then it is absolutely pretentious.

However if you buy it as a novelty for a bit of fun or as something a little different because you like it then carry on. I can see myself buying crap like that in the future - totally pointless but harmless fun.

>I'll agree perception is the key thing but I'm willing to wager more people will perceive that product the way I do than you do.
Without context, anyone can perceive what they want. I can show this to my fellow goat herders and they, too, can get triggered.

I can tell you that my third cousin who lives in a first world country, who looks a lot like me, regularly shops at a high end grocery/boutique food store, where they have a lot of stupid shit like this (although not this exact item). Stuff like $45 tablecloth scrapers (i.e., a piece of chromed stainless steel) designed by Eero Saarien or whatever. It comes in "classy" packaging. It's not like any other tablecloth scraper in the world, because it's authorized by the estate of Eero Saarien (or whoever), although it functions exactly the same as an expired credit card.

If that tablecloth scraper was sold at Wal Mart to pigs shaped like humans with a video sales pitch by Helen Mirren or whoever it is that Wal Mart shoppers consider a high class person, it would be pretentious. But it's just dumped there unceremoniously between the chocolate bars and the re-usable shopping bags made of recycled hemp, so it's not.

OP here

>gag gift
No, It's not. This store does not do gag gifts. This is a very fancy hoity toity store and this is in all seriousness.

The fact that you guys would think this is comedic is a bit worrying, what kind of humour do you have? Grating salt with a hand plane is funny? Would you invite guests around, make a lovely meal, serve it and then stand over them grating a salt block onto their meal and giggling to your self?

This shit was priced exorbitantly as well

I was assuming the same level of gag as a coffee service set where there's an animal pouring the milk out of its mouth

Not entirely serious but not "ha ha this is hilarious" either

>attempting to impress
There's the difference. If you have the money to blow and you're just amusing yourself it isn't pretentious. If you think the fancy salt is going to impress people it is.

Let's put it into an easier to understand context:

Say you're a professional living in an upscale neighborhood. You use your car for driving to work, shopping and going on mostly local trips. Any car in decent shape would suit your needs. But if your neighbors all have new 300 series Mercedes in their driveways you're not all that likely to buy a second hand 2006 Nissan Versa, even if it met your needs. The Mercedes would not be a pretentious choice for you - it would be an appropriate one. But if you bought a Maserati to show off it would be as pretentious as the guy whose neighbors all drive second hand Nissans buying the same Mercedes.

Not pretentious:
>go to cute boutique I normally shop at
>see fancy salt
>remember friend gave me finishing salt two years ago as a birthday present
>liked it, so decide to buy some
>was a little expensive, but there's nothiong wrong with treating yourself every now and then

Pretentious:
>walk into "fancy" expensive store
>OMG, look how expensive that salt is!!!
>if I buy that everyone will think I'm the ULTIMATE foodie connoisseur when I make a big show of grating it into the pasta water
>really can't afford it, but I'll only whip it out when guests come over, so it'll last for years
>know it will impress everyone
>worth it

See the difference?

>If other people are pretentious, me being pretentious isn't pretentious

Your whole argument.

>what would be pretentious for some people is not for others
My whole argument.

>I was assuming the same level of gag as a coffee service set where there's an animal pouring the milk out of its mouth

I... don't see how those are a gag, either? They're cute, I nearly bought a badger one.

And I think you're wrong, either because you have an odd way of looking at things or it's something that you do like but don't want to admit it because everyone is shitting on it.

Think about it like this. If you were poor and you were having friends over you might buy Coke instead of store brand soda to impress your friends. That would be pretentious. But if you weren't poor you'd think nothing of buying Coke over store brand. Hell, you may just buy that hipster soda because you like it, even though it costs more than Coke.

Now just move that up a few notches and the fancy salt starts looking a lot less pretentious for a certain kind of customer.

>I... don't see how those are a gag
You don't think there's any humor involved in making a receptacle for pouring milk emulate a body function of an animal?

You don't seem to be a very analytical person.
It doesn't appeal to me at all, but I'm ok with it. The logic here seems to be "if he has fun with some frivolous thing it's rubbing my misery in my face". That's not odd, it's understandable in fact, but it's a pretty sad commentary on inequality that some novelty rock salt triggers so much class consciousness.

>if he has fun with some frivolous thing it's rubbing my misery in my face

Literally not a single person in this thread has said that. People have pointed out that it's a pointless device that does the same thing but for more money and you've gone off on this tirade about how awful poor people are and how they need to learn to live happier lives and stop being poor.

maybe they're refugees from Veeky Forums?

>you've gone off on this tirade about how awful poor people are and how they need to learn to live happier lives and stop being poor.
Whoa buddy. I never said extreme inequality was good, I meant the opposite in fact. But way to go making my point for me.

>click on thread about pretentiousness and salt
>thread is full of pretentiousness and salt

lol

As someone who currently owns nine different salts and salt-like products including black lava, citrus and a speed grinder (on the left), I'm gonna say that's pretentious.

One doesn't buy that to use at home daily. That's done to impress people either at a restaurant, dinner party or on instagram. That is the actual definition of pretentious as listed earlier.

Shit's good for a gift, too, because it's something most people wouldn't buy for themselves.

>A good gift is something that somebody would never buy

completely agree. I would certainly not buy it for myself, but would use it if given to me

See your different salts are actually different. The OP image is just the same shit as in the grinders just unbroken.

What does that reaction image mean?

Are you disagreeing with that guy?

I for one agree with him - that's gift giving 101.

ugh, fucking phone correcting... that "speed" is supposed to be "smoked"

I want a speed grinder.

yea, don't we all

I don't know or care if the guy technically qualifies as pretentious, but like said, his videos are completely unwatchable due to the shit voiceover.

...

He does have a whif of fanciness to him, but i wouldn't call it pretentiousness

Seasoned salt is not technically salt.

That's like saying that I have two types of nutmeg and pull out a jar of pumpkin pie spice.

Yeah. Nothing wrong with different kinds of salt but there's literally no benefit from buying a block and grating/crushing it yourself. There's nothing in salt that's volatile, will evaporate, and leave your salt tasting inferior. It's not like pepper where buying peppercorns and only grinding them immediately before use is objectively better.

What about "it's fun"?

I mean come on you people will literally spend hours sperging over the seasoning on your cast iron even though teflon is objectively better at nonstick

You can't have a little fun grating salt?