I went into a Krispy Kreme for the first time the other day. Every time I go by the place there’s a long line of cars at the drive-in window, and I’ve heard all about the company’s phenomenal growth rate. I wondered what all the fuss was about. So I went in. “I’ll just buy one doughnut,” I said to myself.

I was lucky to get out alive. The air was full of the sickly smell of warm syrup. You can see the whole production line behind the counter and can watch hundreds of doughnuts moving through the ovens, emerging onto a rolling rack, going through the frosting or glazing machine and finally marching off the end of the line like little warm, sugary lemmings into the waiting mouths of customers. As soon as I was inside the door, the guy behind the counter took a fresh one off the line and handed it to me. The first one’s always free.

As I’d been promised by my friends, the doughnut was good, mainly because it was fresh and hot. I can see their competitive advantage over Dunkin Donuts, which doesn’t bake its doughnuts on site. There isn’t a strong tradition of bakery and pastry shops in the U.S., so I wonder whether Krispy Kreme’s success trades on people’s lack of experience eating freshly-baked goodies.

I stood there, free doughnut in hand, and realized that—just as the marketing guys had intended—the norm of reciprocity and my own greed were conspiring to make me buy a whole box of doughnuts. I was still mesmerized by the fresh ones rolling off the line. The smell of syrup and dough was everywhere. It was appealing and appalling as only fully rationalized capitalism can be.

I heard the voice of Brad DeLong in my ear saying “Do you realize that the doughnut machine there produces more calories in an hour than the whole of 17th-century Britain could in a year?” I sighed, agreed with the phantom Brad, and realized with regret that in net food-consumption terms I was about to take on the role of 17th-century Kent.