A kibbelpouce? Very fishy pastry is a social media sensation

Move over, tompouce. Stand aside, crompouce. There’s a whole new culinary sensation that’s sweeping the nation and it’s called the kibbelpouce!

The kibbelpouce is a fried fish version of the popular pastry typically eaten during Koningsdag festivities every April. The strange treat has been attracting tons of attention since it debuted on the social media accounts of P&M Seafood earlier this week.

A short video of the kibbelpouce quickly went viral and had received over 893,000 views on the fish stand’s TikTok account as of Tuesday evening. It was made with kibbeling [battered fish], custard, and frosting by co-owner Matthijs van Eersel and his colleagues.

“Our inspiration came after the hype of the crompouce,” Van Eersel told Dutch News. “More and more variants came online and I immediately thought, ‘We should also do this with kibbeling.’”

The crompouce, which is one part tompouce and one part croissant, started popping up in bakeries around the Netherlands earlier this year. It’s drawn raves from customers as well as plenty of ire from purists and pastry chefs.

If you’re hankering to try a kibbelpouce though, you shouldn’t visit P&M Seafood’s fish cart anytime soon.

“It’s just a joke,” Van Eersel said. “We have not considered selling this. The video was shot with the idea of ​​attracting a lot of attention. We stand behind our fish and sell the best quality. Actually selling this would go against our principles.”

The kibbelpouce is just the latest parody version of the crompouce you can find online. Other pranksters have made hamburger, cucumber, sushi roll, chicken, and herring variations.

It also doesn’t taste very good, apparently. A colleague of Van Eersel’s tried the kibbelpouce and spat it out after only a single bite.

Reactions to photos and videos of the fishy pastry have been largely sceptical as well.

“This is going too far,” one TikTok viewer wrote. But not everyone is so quick to write it off. “Delicious,” another wrote. “It’s the perfect mix of sweet and savoury!”