Eat your cake and have it, too.
Grand Cru Truffle Torte (Death and Resurrection and Death Again by Chocolate), originally uploaded by 160507.
Class is a loaded subject. The mere mention of it triggers all sorts of insecurity: Do I seem plebian? Are they mocking me? Have I not sufficiently concealed my lower middle-class background beneath a carapace of designer labels? In his 1983 book Class, Paul Fussell noted that the anxiety one feels when the subject of class is mentioned is a gauge of her social class. The upper-class enjoys it because it flatters them. The lower classes don’t care because they can’t change their class identity. It’s the middle class that gets all worked up, because they’d like to be upper class, but could still slip down to lower class.
It’s a touchy subject. So we won’t talk about class. Let’s talk about cake. In the Philippines, where the gap between rich and poor is so vast they seem to occupy different countries, you can tell a lot about someone by who bakes her cakes. The middle-income groups — the C and D demographics — buy cake from the big bakery chains. These chains have branches in all the shopping malls, and in countries which have large Filipino communities. The lower-income E and F demographics are too busy worrying about survival to think about cake. The elite A and B demographics may also patronize commercial bakeries, but on the occasions that call for displays of privilege, they refer to a private list.
This list contains the telephone numbers of upper and upper-middle class matrons in Manila who make cakes to order. Let’s call them bespoke bakers. Each one has her own speciality: Mrs Yulo has her strawberry shortcake, Mrs Cunanan her ensaymada, Mrs Vargas her butter cake, and so on. . .
Cake and Class in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Star. By the way, the title has the correct sequence of the frequently-misquoted expression, “You can’t eat your cake and have it too”. I learned this from the Unabomber, but not personally. William Safire in his NYT column on June 12, 1996:
“Correct usage of a much-abused proverb first recorded in the 16th century has become evidence. In paragraph 185 of his 35,000-word “manifesto,” published under duress by The Washington Post and The New York Times, the Unabomber wrote, “As for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society — well, you can’t eat your cake and have it too — to gain one thing you have to sacrifice another.” In a letter discovered in Kaczynski’s mother’s home — a letter that inexplicably found its way into the media — the same proverb appears in the same words, with the same lack of a comma before the “too.”
“In both instances, the having and the eating were in correct order. Many people err in saying, “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too,” because you can — first you have it, and then you eat it. The impossible is the other way around; to “eat your cake and have it” is the absurdity that makes the point. Both the Unabomber’s creed and the Kaczynski letter had it right, which is more than can be said for half the quoters of the proverb.”
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 25th, 2008 at 08:11
You know I never understood that expression “have your cake and eat it too.”
Of course you will eat the cake once you have it otherwise there’s no point of it falling under your list of possessions. So far I don’t know of anyone who would go through all that effort to obtain the pastry and then put it on display until it decomposes.
Very strange idiom.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:31
The middle class is the most insecure of all the classes. I think the entire fashion industry is dependent upon the insecurity of the middle class.
And while we’re on the subject of misquotes, did Marie Antoinette really say, ‘Let them eat cake?’ And if she did, is ‘cake’ an accurate translation? Maybe she said something like, ‘Walang tinapay? Pakainin nyo sila ng puto’.
July 26th, 2008 at 07:38
Nowadays, I don’t think “real” rich people even buy things. Things are given to them gratis. Look at all those gift baskets they hand out at televised award shows.
July 29th, 2008 at 12:56
Some of the middle class bake their own cake. But they let you know very loudly that their ingredients are not ordinary chocolates or cheap butter, and don’t try to pass your cake off as special, they can tell the difference. They also let you know that they’ve spend the whole day baking the thing because it’s not easy to make moist, soft cakes. You never get to taste them though. You’re poor. You can’t return the favor.
Then true to any culture or income bracket, you celebrate certain events. You the miserable lower class try to share your food to your kind. The middle class would then come down from their high places to try to mingle with your celebrations. They just pick at your food. Then they make all sorts of comments: “you should have used mozzarella on your lasagna! or “where are the meat in the pancit?”
July 31st, 2008 at 16:00
Cake for the lower rung of our society, myself included, are those “Twinky”-wannabees (Lemon Square company, potential endorser alert!!) that are common place at your nearest sari-sari store.
They might not taste as good as the “commercial” bakery bring-home goodies, but these “wannabe Twinkies” surely makes us in the “lower caste” have a taste a bit of the cakes the “upper rung” eat AND makes us aspire for more expensive and more mouth-watering fare; cakes that you see being eaten by movie stars on the silver screen (or 30″ LCD TV, by the way, courtesy of our OFW neighbor.)
I can have my mini-cake (Inipit or what have you) AND eat it, and I LOVE it!
P.S.: If the Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, had these mini-cakes, he might have chosen baking as his profession ;)
August 1st, 2008 at 12:02
Lemon Square cheese cupcakes are yummy. Im actually toying with the idea of using them as crust for a dessert instead of the usual graham-cracker-and-butter I use. Maybe for a cheesecake. (Cheesecake with a cheese cupcake crust. Yes, there is no off position on the genius switch.) Im inviting you guys to try it, too. Just dont forget where you heard the idea first. Thank you. :-)
(Are you like me? Do you also feel guilty about pronouncing graham correctly instead of pronouncing it gray-ham?)