Last week, Walmart emailed me with a strange proposition: If I were home and willing to accept deliveries on Friday, the company would love to send me their newest product, which was destined to be, the email read, “the hottest mashup since tweens started asking for labradoodles” (emphasis theirs). The item, the announcement continued, was the Crotilla — pronounced exactly how you’d think — and it was the result of a drunken night of passion between a croissant and a tortilla; a love that dare not speak its name.
After spending a few minutes wondering why exactly Walmart was taking a “Hello, fellow kids” approach to advertising one of the strangest and most unhealthy things* I have heard of instead of just saying “attention adults: you’ll eat this because you hate yourself and you’ll like it,” I quickly acquiesced to the delivery and prepared to dunk on this thing so hard that Walmart would never make a new product again.
And then the Crotilla arrived. After running downstairs in my underwear to collect it — sorry, FedEx guy, I know mine wasn’t the half-naked body you were hoping to see when you signed up for the job — I quickly opened the package, ignored the instructions to microwave each flaky round of dough for approximately 15 seconds before eating, and quickly shoved one into the gaping maw I sometimes call my mouth, ready to snark like I’d never snarked before. A f*cking croissant/tortilla hybrid? Give me a break. Innovation is over if we’re paying people to just mash up carbs and hope for the best, you know? Shut it all down and pretend it never happened.
But here’s the thing: The Crotilla is good. It’s really, really good. And had I the patience to plug in my microwave instead of eating the contents of the package right there — naked and sweaty in my living room — it would have probably been ever better. True, the taste is more croissant than anything else (you can’t really taste the tortilla, though it’s definitely there), but the Crotilla does what croissants can’t do — namely be turned into a quesadilla or a burrito.
You thought spinach and tomato tortillas were good? How about wrapping all the ingredients you know and love inside a flaky, buttery shell that resembles that of the finest Taco Bell chalupa? How about slapping some cheese between two Crotillas and having yourself a goddamn party? You want to go harder? Drop some toppings and make yourself a breakfast pizza that’s both fun and looks sensible.
Make no bones about it: The Crotilla is basic AF, but it’s also deceptively delicious. So much so, in fact, that when my husband found me in the kitchen wrapping one around a glob of macaroni salad, he didn’t even stop to lecture me on my heart health after taking a bite. Sure, the marketing on this thing is way off (the kids will never want this, Walmart) (never), but the execution is on point, turning even the most ardent hater of all things contrived to be “cute” and “a fun novelty item” into a helpless Walmart shill.
Do you need the Crotilla in your life? Unless you’re one of those people who actually shrieks in anger when your croissant sandwiches comes out too fluffy, probably not. Do you want it? The answer to that is a resounding (if embarrassed) “Hell yeah.”
*I consulted a doctor about whether this was okay to eat and got no response, though a friend in the same group chat informed that it was fine because “croissants are full of french nutrients, and french people don’t get fat.”
