About Frozen Yogurt

A couple of weeks ago my friend Kathryn asked me, "What's up with all the frozen yogurt here?" I'm paraphrasing because I can't remember exactly how she posed the question. But I do remember the look of real concern on her face. She and her husband were visiting New York from Los Angeles, the city that birthed Pinkberry and brain-seared us with imagery of people in gym apparel lining up to pile peanut butter cups and Fruity Pebbles on their little low-cal cups of frozen dairy.

But why were people doing this here, in New York City, and now? Why were people lining up for an hour in the pitiless sun? Why were there suddenly so many frozen yogurt shops enabling them to do so? Why didn't anyone seem to realize it was no longer 2008? Why? Kathryn asked with the distressed innocence of a child who has learned that a beloved, aged family pet has taken a surprise trip to a "farm."

So I took a deep breath and told her the truth: I don't know.

I don't know why many people in New York are behaving as though they're queuing for a free two-bedroom apartment instead of a $7-$15 cup of yassified cow's milk. I don't know why most of these yogurt shops have cutesy wee names that sound like children's clothing boutiques and pampered chihuahuas. I don't know why anyone lines up for anything in New York, aside from the Ilana Kohn sample sale (RIP).

What I do know is that a lot of the people who are fueling New York's frozen yogurt* craze aren't old enough to have experienced TCBY, the frozen yogurt chain that was founded in 1981 and is often referenced when people like me scratch our heads over the youngs and their frozen yogurt fixation. Some of these folks weren't around for the early-aughts Pinkberry proliferation either, or didn't yet have sufficient autonomy to partake in the 16 Handles/Tasti D-Lite/Red Mango boom of the recession era. They don't know what it was like to pull the handle of a self-serve yogurt dispenser and stand before a toppings bar like a god. They don't fully understand what it was like to eat before Trump, before Brexit, before industrial-strength wellness, before the unholy trinity of private equity, venture capital, and TikTok warped our food and cultural landscape.

What I can say is that frozen yogurt is cyclical, and that every generation gets the frozen yogurt trend it deserves. And I feel a certain degree of sympathy for this generation. We've given them a shitty economy, climate change, AI, and an ambulatory poop emoji as the leader of the nominally free world. The least we can do is let them eat their frozen yogurt in peace.

For the record, I have no idea if it's any good. My own interest in frozen yogurt was extinguished during college, thanks to a self-serve dispenser in the cafeteria. This was during the nadir of the low-fat craze, when people, myself included, used sugar to compensate for flavor and couldn't figure out why their pants no longer fit. I've eaten frozen yogurt approximately once since then, and it tasted of sour milk and compromised standards. If I'm going to pop a Lactaid, it's for ice cream, a big sloppy scoop swaddled by a waffle cone. It won't have the "freshness and lightness" that the yogurt peddlers like to claim of their product. But it will provide me with a freshness of spirit and lightness of mood, and I'll get in line for that.

*I am physically incapable of saying "froyo."

What I'm consuming this week:

Listening: Gina Gershon reads Eve Babitz's letters from Too L.A. on the NYRB Private Life podcast.

Reading: "What happened when one brave woman stopped HYDRATING and started LIVING."

Watching: The trailer for The Debut. Julianne Moore does battle with Paul Giamatti as a community theater director? I'm already buying my ticket.