Jessai Flores

When my friends from the University of Southern California toured me around Los Angeles over spring break, we embarked on several outings that were completely foreign to me. Weirdly, one of these was going to a grocery store. 

I knew only a couple things about Erewhon: $14 smoothies named after nepo babies and a $20 strawberry — that’s right, just one singular strawberry — flown in from Japan. After months of FaceTiming my friends in LA, I had slowly become acquainted with the idea of a grocery store that was just as much a museum as it was a place to buy flour. And, of course, that characterization can’t be separated from the chain’s ubiquitous presence on social media, be it in the form of mukbang videos or vlogs of a day in the perfect LA life. 

Given all this, it should suffice to say that I was intrigued by and a little skeptical about all the fuss. After my first bite of buffalo cauliflower, the skepticism faded into fascination. It didn’t hurt that in my 15-minute first trip there, I did see Diana Ross’s daughter. 

Staying in a USC dorm pushed me into the deep end of the LA atmosphere. Influencer and comedian Jake Shane, who first went viral a couple years ago and has since been named on the Forbes “30 Under 30” list, lived in the same dorm building that I camped out in, as did Lori Loughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade during the 2019 “Varsity Blues” scandal. USC as home base for the week meant that the potency of social media in LA culture loomed large in my understanding of the city, which I was in turn trying to fit into larger national trends. 

Since moving to Connecticut I’ve devised a phrase to encapsulate the differences I’ve observed between the north and my native Texas: “The south is fake nice, and the north is real mean.” But if this maxim is true, what true character does that leave for the West? After a week of hopping between restaurants with trees growing through the floorboards and themed amusement parks, each offering something completely unique, I began to wonder whether or not California was authentically anything. As a newly minted Californian — my mom moved to the Monterey Bay Area over winter break — I was looking for something there that resonates with those parts of me not manifested in the face-value flatness of my hometown of Houston. 

I walked into Erewhon thinking maybe I had found it. I couldn’t help feeling that my mom — a whole and healthy food nut who wouldn’t have recognized the name Erewhon, let alone any of the influencers who had made it viral — would love it there, too. And with that realization, it struck me what a strange intersection of the population was drawn to Erewhon — I had never before observed so clearly the dichotomy of those consumers drawn to either the content or the context. An insane variety of shoppers — half looking for something that had the right look and marketability and the other half seeking authentically healthy groceries— were all descending on the same rows of macrobiotic freshly-squeezed juices and hemp-infused foot moisturizers. Here I was, in a place clearly meant to be put on display, consuming a product made beautiful both because of an intense focus on its aesthetics but also in virtue of its all-natural ingredients. In my mind there emerged a contradiction. Is it possible for the same product to fulfill the needs of consumers with opposite intentions?

The somewhat obvious answer is yes. Something authentically awesome should also look awesome and fit into an intentionally curated life of awesome things. According to the company website, “The vision behind Erewhon was simple yet ambitious: By filling our bodies with the best the earth has to offer, we can become our best selves.” I couldn’t escape the thought, however, that the best self this mission statement references is contingent on every observer agreeing that it is the best.

When everything is commercialized, we become conditioned to doubt praise. At Erewhon, I was dumbfounded by and at somewhat of a loss about what to do with a product and experience that is actually worth the hype. In her Substack article, author Ana Andjelic pins down the Erewhon ethos. “Instead of convincing people to buy something (think of countless CPG ads on TV), Erewhon created something that people want to buy and identify with.” 

I read this and was taken aback by how much society has lost the plot on marketing and advertising. Of course the fact that Erewhon’s reputation aligns with the nature of their product — as opposed to existing independently in some nebulous online world — makes sense. That is, actually, the entire point. This seems so simple it’s almost not worth saying. Until you get to the last three words. What does it mean — and why would anyone want — to identify with groceries?

But as with every marketable product of the 2020s, there is something aspirational about Erewhon. That is evident the second you walk in and are greeted by 20 bouquets of flowers, each worthy of a stop-her-at-the-airport-to-declare-his-love scene in a romcom. But there is something intimate and personal about the sort of aspiration present at a grocery store. Food can change you in a more proven way than most other products peddled by the wellness industry. You are what you eat, not what cream you put on your face or $200 bathrobe you impulse purchase. Perhaps, as one of our basest needs, it follows that food would be something for which the appearance and substance most converge. It is evolutionarily instilled in us to be attracted to that subsistence which is most valuable. So the weirdest part of all of this is that we’ve turned food into something aspirational, because it is something you should never need to aspire to have.

The thing that struck me about LA is that everything there was an experience. It was honestly my favorite part, but I wonder to what degree it contributes to the lack of groundedness that stereotypically characterizes Californians. To say that everything is an experience is a tautology, so what happens when things need to be curated in order to feel real? Conversely, what do you do with those experiences that are simultaneously real and curated — like Erewhon? 

It seems like living the healthy lifestyle that Erewhon promises is contingent on being consumed yourself. If I were to get all my food in non-branded bags and eat them alone at home, the experience would be fundamentally altered.

Growing up in the era of social media, it’s impossible to not — as Margaret Atwood so eloquently put it more than 30 years ago in her novel “The Robber Bride” — turn into “your own voyeur.” Going on spring break and not taking any pictures, I caught myself thinking “What a waste of a trip.” Thank goodness I catch myself, otherwise I might not be able to filter that thought out, and the urge to cater myself for consumption by others will overtake me.

After my second week in California, I said bye to my mom and boarded the plane back to JFK, a place known for its sharp edges and lack of filter. I was leaving California and with that its culture of posting about workout classes and strawberries alike. But as I prepared for takeoff, I eavesdropped on the girls sitting in the row behind me. Headed home from spring break, one girl leaned on the plane window and admitted to her friend that she had just stalked her past three years of spam Instagram posts. 

“Is that normal?” She asked. 

“Absolutely,” her friend replied without a thought. 

I could so clearly envision myself doing the same thing, tapping through my archived Instagram stories — pausing on the one showing off my Hailey Bieber smoothie — and compiling online evidence that the person whom I most desperately want to be seen as is who I really am. People are fascinated by the versions of themselves who they’ve created for others to see. We crave immensely for that version to be consumed.

But consumed by who? When I really investigate that, there seems to be only one possible answer: myself.