CAKE
‘Cake’ is a word
that almost the whole world knows. From delicate French pastries to New York
Cheesecake, from the English Sponge Cakes to Mississippi Mud Pies, cake is
something that has a variation in almost every part of the world. The story of
how this came into being, however, is known by few….
Once, in an old
Neolithic village, a young girl named Lee-Nara watched her mother make their
food from oat, grains and other plain things. Suddenly, her younger brother
began to wail.
“Watch the food till I come back,” instructed
her mother. The girl watched the hot stone on which her mother cooked. She picked up the grains and dropped them on
the hot stone, trying to cook like her mother. Her mother took the grains,
dipped them in a strange thing which she called Water, and put them on the
stone. Then mother took them off and put them on a flat rock with a white
powder they got from the sea to eat. Lee-Nara picked up another handful,
crushing the grains by mistake.
“Uh-oh!” she
thought, rolling it into a ball like the other children did with the lumps of
some thing their parents got for them to make models. It looked like mud and
they were always teasing her as she was the only child in the village who did
not have it.
“Well, I’ll make models with grains and eat
them too!” she thought, adding the white powder to the ball. Then she pressed
the ball onto the hot stone, and waited. When it finally got baked, her mother
was back. She offered her a bite.
“Why! This tastes good!” said her mother, and
then the girl taught her to make it. They called all the villagers, and even
the other children were in awe of her. She stood proudly, giving everybody the
dish she had made.
“What’s it
called?” asked someone. Then she realized she hadn’t even named it.
“It’s called
Kaka, after the grains that made it!” she said after a while. This was the
first salty ‘cake’.
Years later, the
Greeks made a new discovery. A young boy named Icharius was eating honey and
dates in his villa’s kitchen while his mother made satura, balls made from oats.
She kept putting them on a plate. Icharius picked up the plate with his honey
covered hands, splattering honey on all the balls and flattening them.
“Really! This is
very careless of you! You are now going to get no more, go and eat these if you
are hungry!” scolded his mother. Icharius meekly picked up one and began to eat
it. Surprisingly, it tasted amazing!
“Mater, try
one!” he said. His mother gave him a suspicious look but bit into one of them.
“This tastes
excellent! We shall have these for the great feast tonight! Get the honey and
date jars!” she exclaimed. He smiled, and ran to get the jars.
“Mater, what
shall we call it?” he asked.
“How about
plakous, as they are flat?” suggested his mother (obviously, ‘plakous’ is greek
for flat!).
“Perfect!”
Icharius grinned….
When the Romans
took over Greece,
they also added their part to the history of cake.
They used to
give fruits, flowers and meat as offerings to their gods. One year, there was a
terrible drought and people were dying. The emperor made offerings every day,
but nothing happened, till one day, one of the priests, who was a Greek, had an
idea.
“You’re
Highness? If you don’t mind may I
suggest something?” asked the priest one morning as the worried looking Emperor
made his daily offering.
“Not at all.
What is it?” replied the weary Emperor.
“Sire, perhaps the
gods are tired of your offerings!” he suggested.
“That is a good
theory, but what else can we give them?” sighed the Emperor.
“If I may
suggest, a Greek dish named Plakous?” said the priest.
“Call my cooks!
You will teach them to make this Plakous of yours, and then we shall see,” said
the Emperor, clapping his hands.
So the priest
was taken to the palace kitchens, where he made the Plakous.
“Ah, but may I
add something from our country?” asked the Roman cook.
“Sure!” said the
priest. The Roman made a pastry base and placed the Plakous on top.
When it was
finished, the Emperor used it for his evening offering, and priest watched
nervously. The next day, miraculously, the River Tiber flooded, bringing much
needed water. The priest and cook were famous! That dish, was called libum, and
was like a modern cheese cake.
The medieval
English, of course, were not to be left behind…
It was early
morning in the castle, and King Henry the Eighth had ordered a great feast that
evening. So the kitchen was in chaos, as a young girl, named Anne, about 3, sat
at a table eating breakfast as her mother, the dessert cook, made fruit salad
and milk bread pudding while chatting with her friend, the baker, who was
making loaves of bread to be eaten with soup. She was eating some of the uncooked
bread batter and milk pudding. She dipped one hand in the bread and another in
the sugar and milk mixture for the pudding, putting both in her mouth at the
same time.
“Mum, how many
salads do you have to make?” she asked thoughtfully
“Two hundred,
dear! Now finish eating and help me soon!” smiled her mother.
The girl liked
the taste of the mixture of bread and milk, and decided to mix both. She poured
the sugar and the milk into the bread batter and picked an interesting looking
powder and poured it in. Then she mixed it and ran to help her mother. The
baker, who had not noticed all the mixing going on behind her back, simply
poured the mixture into the bread tin, and set it to bake. Later, at the feast,
when the ambassador from the
Holy Roman Empire
took a piece and bit into it, the baker watched nervously.
“Why, Henry!
Your cooks have grown in their culinary discoveries. They have made this interesting
sweet bread. Tell me, is this a traditional English secret recipe?” he asked.
“Sweet Bread?
Why, I have never heard of such a thing!” The King cried in surprise, placing
one slice in his mouth.
“BAKER!” King
Henry bellowed the moment he chewed it.
“Y-yes, you’re
Majesty?” stammered the baker.
“Where did you
get this recipe from?” asked the King.
“Your Highness,
I did not make it. I made the bread batter, kept it on the kitchen table and
began to clear up. I suppose someone mixed sugar in as I was cleaning, sire!
Goodness knows who it was, but it was not me!” said the Baker.
“Well, then one
of you must have seen someone taking some sugar!” the king bellowed at the
cooks and maids.
“Your Highness,
I had made the Milk and sugar topping for the bread pudding and left it on the
table as I made the base along with the bread batter. Perhaps someone mixed
them both,” said the cook.
“Who was it? Own
up!” said the king.
“You’re Majesty?
It was me!” said the dessert cook’s daughter, Anne.
“Dear, don’t irritate
the king-“
“SILENCE! LET
THE CHILD SPEAK!” shouted the king.
“I thought it
would taste good, and mixed them both with some powder I noticed lying on the
table, your highness,” said Anne boldly.
“It was you?
Then this proves how irresponsible my kitchen staff are, to let someone add
something to the food without them noticing!” called the King. The Dessert Cook
and the Baker looked at each other, frightened.
“However, this
young girl has made a culinary discovery! She has converted normal bread into and
extraordinary creation! I would like everyone here to applaud for her new
dish!” said the king, standing up and clapping.
“Thank you! Now,
what should we call this?” asked the King after everyone had finished clapping.
There was a volley of suggestions.
“Sweet Bread!”
“Sugared Bread!”
“Baked Sweet
Dish!”
“Sugary Flour!”
“STOP!” bellowed
King Henry.
“Let the girl
decide!” said the king, turning to her.
“Sire, if I may
interrupt, can I make a suggestion?” said the Royal Historian.
“Go on,” said
the king patiently.
“We could call
it cake, after the first bread ever made, perhaps?” said the Historian.
“I think it is a
great idea!” said Anne, before the king could say anything.
“ALL RIGHT! I
HEREBY NAME THIS DISH “CAKE”. DOES ANYONE OPPOSE?” shouted the King. No one
moved.
“THEN IT IS
SETTLED. THIS DISH IS NAMED CAKE!” shouted the king, as everyone burst into
applause.
Nowadays, baking
powder and baking soda are used as raising agents in cake instead of yeast.
Cake can be chocolate, vanilla, iced, or not iced, a cupcake or a muffin, a
layer cake or a plain cake. It can be any shape size, or color. Now, it can be
eaten by anyone, rich or poor, but in earlier times, only the king could eat it
and it was expensive to make.
During World War
2, cakes were made with crushed chestnut and other nuts as substitutes for
flour, just as the first cake was made, thousands of years ago. Cake has been
made in many ways- the Mexican wedding cakes, as small as toffees, or the huge
layered cakes of
Europe. Every region has it’s
own variety of cake, and cake, whether it is called Tiramisu or Gateau, is
still made basically the way the little Tudor girl mixed it all those years
ago- with Flour, eggs, butter, milk and sugar! Cake is a term that is almost
universally known by everyone, whether it is sweet chocolate brownie or the
spicy Tofu- Jalapeño cakes……
