Food History

I’m being very self-indulgent tonight. I refuse to bake myself a birthday cake for tomorrow and I refuse to do without one, so I’m giving everyone a birthday cake entry here. Call it a virtual birthday cake.

Let’s start with the history of the word cake. The Food Museum suggests it comes from an Old Norse word kaka, which sounds quite possible. I won’t go into modern meanings of kaka - just accept that cake came from an good Old Norse root and has nothing in common.

This word-origin is important because it places the original concept of a cake (as oposed to a bread) with the pre-Norman inhabitants of England. In other words, it’s a little sunbeam of hope that people made cakes before they made recipe books. The fact that they probably made those cakes without leaving us much evidence is irrelevant - we need proof, and the history of the word cake gives us that hope.

The online Oxford English Dictionary traces the word cake to c 1230, which is good. It means I can accept cake existed from at least the thirteenth century and probably significantly earlier. There might even be a direct link with Roman cookery and cakes might be continuing and ancient. I rather suspect they might, but ‘rather suspect’ does not equal proof and I’ve never looked at cake history before.

Alas, the OED isn’t nearly as useful for the early entry of the phrase birthday cake. In fact, it’s not useful for birthday cake at all. There are a lot of theories about the origin of birthday cakes online. Some sites suggest they come straight from Ancient Greece, others from Medieval Germany. Actual evidence is rare. The most convincing site suggests that birthday cakes as we know them come from the nineteenth century. Why does this convince me more than the others? Mainly because this site points to major changes in transport and trade and tools, which would really have made birthday cakes a lot easier to achieve. It also doesn’t rely on assumptions about Medieval birthday cakes, for which no-one gives evidence. I need to investigate where these mysterious cakes were made that had prizes hidden in them and were served on birthdays. It’s not impossible they existed, but I like my evidence strong.

I don’t have a picture of a birthday cake to give you. How is this?

None of the pictures I could find had the right number of candles on them. Picture in your mind a chocolate mud cake or a nice sachertorte. Decorate it (not too much) and place 46 candles on it. Carry this in your head through 25 April and sing happy birthday to me from time to time. I won’t ask for proof you’ve done any of this - some things just have to be taken on trust.