This Rising Instagram Star Turns Junk Food Into Haute Cuisine

This isn’t haute cuisine, it’s a freezer-section sausage with Fritos. Or, as “Chef Jacques LaMerde” calls it, it’s a “ready 2 eat Jimmy Dean sausage w/canned spring vegetables, French’s, Fritos hoops, pistachio soil, and palate-cleansing shot of fermented Lake Michigan water with nutritional yeast rim.”

LaMerde, a tweezer-toting genius, plates junk food as if he’s serving it at a 4-star restaurant, giving suburban pantry staples a new life as fancypants food, complete with faux-elegant descriptions like “shards of Triscuit cracker,” “Spam torchon,” “hay baked Hot Pockets,” and “honey ham rosettes.”

©Jacques LaMerde Instagram feed

With the skills (and airs) of the most accomplished molecular gastronome, this anonymous Instagrammer is catching the eye of food experts such as Ted Allen, who posted a link to his account with the comment, “Dude, where have you been all my life?” and an entreaty to come appear on Chopped. With only 23 posts on his account, LaMerde already has more than 35,000 followers. His profile is as elegant and minimalistic as his plates.

He’s a culinary superhero, complete with secret identity. No one knows who this guy is, but Chef Jacques—whose full name translates to “Jack Shit”—is definitely winning at Instagram right now.

©Jacques LaMerde Instagram feed

When asked (via email) by the Munchies website what goes through his head as he plates, LaMerde replied, in enthusiastic all caps:

“FLAVOUR, TEXTURE, PLUS GETTING A LOT OF INGREDIENTS ON A PLATE AND NOT A LOT OF FOOD !!!”

Does the spelling give us a hint? Is he British? Canadian? Only he and his tweezers know for sure.

©Jacques LaMerde Instagram feed