Let Them Eat Cake
- Ella Ferrero
- 15 minutes ago
- 3 min read
October 20, 2025 Newsletter
We don’t know if Marie Antionette actually said it, but Jean-Jacques Rousseau did!
“Let them eat cake” is the phrase of the moment—a rich person’s poor interpretation of the plight of the lower class. Just like Kim Kardashian not knowing the price of a gallon of milk, Antionette did not understand the nuance of a poor person’s position, and that poor people cannot just stop being poor. The ignorance of the upper class is what keeps them indoctrinated in their lavishness. Extreme wealth makes a person feel less human because they don’t have to do most of the things that normal humans do. They don’t have to grocery shop, clean their own houses, or buy their own clothes if they don’t want to. Wealth used to mean the power of choice, now it just means the absolution of the labor of it.
My dad took me to Gallagher’s steak house this past weekend, which was no doubt the fanciest place I had ever eaten at in my life. This is the kind of place where a steak is at least $50. To my right, a couple was going on an awkward date wherein the guy kept touching the middle-aged male waiter’s waist. To my left, a rich guy was complaining to his girlfriend about how many girls accosted him at last night’s gala because he’s so rich. Tech bros sat behind my dad, enjoying their new-found wealth. The only thing I could think about was: “How much money do all of these people make?”
I have been in many places like this wherein I’ve felt completely out of place. I worked in Chelsea at an art gallery for two years. Once a customer dropped $20k on a piece of tinfoil with nail polish on it, and went out for lunch after like it was nothing. The thing that irks me the most about these places is the food waste. Even today at lunch, the couple next to me that talked about naming their son Rigatoni threw away half a burger and a sliced avocado.
Maybe it’s because my mom grew up poor and told me to never waste anything, or the fact that I am just incredibly frugal, but food waste is such a tragedy to me. I think if you see anyone eating out of the trash, if you give anyone your leftovers, or see anyone struggle to know where their next meal is coming from, you would feel the same.
If you’ve ever struggled financially or know someone who has, you know that food doesn’t just magically appear when you want it or need it. This is why “let them eat cake” is such a triggering phrase, and so relevant to how the upper class can view necessities such as food and housing. Growing up in Portland, Oregon, a place with a large homelessness crisis, I always argued with people who said: “Why can’t they just get a place that isn’t the street?”
It almost feels like the upper class is living in a completely different reality than everyone else. The top ten percent account for fifty percent of spending, according to my dad and Moody’s, a bond-rating company that sources from the Fed reserve. This is all we could say at dinner.
The middle-class is disappearing, and inter-class relations with it. Inflation and wealth-disparity are increasingly apparent in big cities such as New York, wherein you can find people living on the street outside of the brunch place that charges $20 for a BEC. People like RFK Jr. are so close to pointing out the cruelty of private health and food disparity, but turn around and push to defund the very programs that help people access healthcare and healthy food. You can’t just tell people to eat healthier without giving them the means to do so.
We are approaching French revolution level wealth-disparity and greed, but the question is: will we also use the guillotine?
Our Food for Thought issue aims to tackle how we view food—as a necessity, a political pawn, a luxury, etc. If you have any newsletter-length thoughts about food, please email your draft or pitch to me at eferrero@pratt.edu for a chance to be featured in the next newsletter.
Stay well-read, stay safe, stay sexy.
XOXO,
Ella Ferrero
Managing Editor
The Prattler