0:06

Hello, and welcome to Saber. I'm Anny Rees and

0:08

I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we're

0:11

talking about birthday cake. No,

0:14

Lie, Nope. This episode

0:16

goes out to three of my

0:18

closest friends, Caitlin, Katie, and

0:20

Marissa. Hi. Yeah, Hello. These

0:23

ladies are extraordinary friends.

0:25

We've been together since before

0:28

elementary school. Yeah, and twice

0:30

a year we do trips together. And they literally

0:32

brought tears of my eyes when I crossed the finished line of my

0:34

last race and they were all there with amazing signs.

0:37

They're so supportive. I value their friendship.

0:40

And they all have birthdays

0:42

within a month of each other, including

0:44

one that, as this podcast releases

0:47

the day of this her birthday today, So

0:50

happy birthday to all of you. And

0:53

also, I forgot that listener mail

0:56

about slitting the cakes through while

0:58

children's scream. We were like,

1:01

whole, We've we

1:03

want to talk about this. That was

1:05

so great. Um, do you have a

1:07

cake preference? Lord? I love a cake.

1:09

Um. There's something about like the springy texture

1:12

and the contrast of that with like the creamy frosting

1:14

and the nostalgia factor. I feel

1:17

like my entire childhood was just a series

1:19

of kid's birthday parties. Um

1:22

with that giant cheat cake from

1:24

grocery stores. Oh goodness.

1:26

Um. My preference, even

1:29

when I was a kid, actually has always run towards

1:32

less sweet, like German style deserts,

1:34

like a soccer tort which my dad used

1:36

to make us, a chocolate layer cake with

1:38

apricot filling and chocolate ganosh,

1:40

and it was almost bitter. It was so good. But

1:43

I have a hard time turning down any

1:46

cake. Yeah, I don't

1:48

know. Something about like ice

1:50

rinks and cheat cake just puts

1:52

me in a good mood. We are coming up with

1:54

the song titles today. I

1:57

sprinks and cakes again.

1:59

If you have written this song or

2:02

if it needs to be written right, free

2:04

title yes and then send it to us. Dessert

2:09

wise, for me, cakes are at the lower

2:11

end of my tear. Okay, but I

2:14

am a big fan of the spectacle cake.

2:16

Oh yeah you are. I've seen you make

2:18

at least one of these. Yes, I like

2:20

making an exploding volcano cake for

2:23

the volcano Pompeii, which happened on the

2:25

same day I was born, just like many many years

2:27

ago. Well, sure, not

2:31

a vampire or anything like that. So

2:33

you say not a vampire

2:36

other monsters have immortal qualities

2:39

to Lauren. Um.

2:42

And my most memorable cake is actually one I made

2:44

for one of my aforementioned friends, Katie, and

2:46

it was just a rainbow bunt cake, but

2:49

I don't think she was expecting it, and it just became

2:51

this really meaningful thing. And it actually snowed

2:53

in Georgia, which was a huge deal. And

2:57

I made a stairway ramp

2:59

that it into another snow ramp that went

3:01

down a hill into another rap, and

3:03

I convinced my parents this was safe using the

3:06

old they did it in home alone defense and

3:08

this actually worked. How

3:10

old were you? Its like, oh

3:13

my goodness, I remember my

3:15

dad. He was like, just because I do it

3:17

movies, I don't think that's a good idea. My

3:19

mom kind of thought about it for me. She's like, yeah, I

3:21

did do it in that movie. Didn't there and

3:25

it worked, but she my mom didn't make me go first,

3:28

and then when it was successful, then

3:30

she let Katie go. Um.

3:33

And then I have another friend who we celebrate joint birthdays

3:35

together and her mom is like a really

3:37

good baker, and

3:40

um, she made a SpongeBob

3:42

themed pineapple cake

3:45

that was pretty that's beautiful.

3:47

It looked like a pineapple had figurines

3:49

on it. I was in college.

3:52

I'm not ashamed. But

3:55

anyway, let's get to our

3:57

question. Birthday cakes. What

4:03

are they? Well,

4:05

um, it's a cake you have to celebrate

4:07

someone's birthday. Makes sense.

4:09

That's not always the case. Oh

4:12

well, okay, it's also a flavor. Um. And

4:14

I suppose that any cake can be a

4:16

birthday cake, or even anything that you shape like a

4:18

cake. But the American concept is

4:21

a two layer cake with some kind of filling between

4:23

the layers and some kind of icing to

4:25

cover it. Um, you put tiny candles

4:27

on it, and you like them, and you sing happy

4:29

birthday to the celebrant and they blow the candles

4:32

out, and then you slice and distribute the cake to

4:34

the partygoers. And I

4:36

guess I've never really thought about it before. But as

4:38

I was writing that out, I was like, this is

4:40

heck and weird. It's pretty

4:43

strange. Why do we do this?

4:46

Well, we'll get to that later, we will.

4:49

Uh. First, let's talk about nutrition.

4:53

It's like the number one health food, right.

4:55

Oh yeah, absolutely, I started

4:57

to mind starting cake my

5:00

mouth. Uh. Hey,

5:02

that's a valid life decision. It's all about balance

5:05

um. According to the Internet, a serving

5:07

of yellow cake with chocolate frosting is

5:09

one eighth of an eighteen ounce cake,

5:11

equalling out to sixty four grams per

5:13

slice. That slice contains about your

5:16

daily recommended intake of fat, grams

5:19

of sugar, and basically nothing of value.

5:21

Um. I mean, there's like two grams of protein

5:23

in there. Um, there's some iron, there's

5:26

some value in the happiness

5:28

that you get from sharing, nothing

5:31

of nutritional value, nothing

5:33

that your body can turn into like stuff

5:37

that you need for your body, unless

5:40

it's a Monster's Inc. Situation where

5:43

you can take the energy from happiness

5:46

and convert that into actual energy.

5:49

I haven't done the research on it, um,

5:51

I just know that that seems to be

5:54

what's happening in Monsters Inc. I'll

5:56

call Sully see if they've got any research

5:58

on that. Yes, Oh,

6:01

I almost went on a whole Pixar unified

6:04

universe. Stand alright, anyway,

6:06

Okay, numbers, there

6:08

are around a million types

6:11

of cake? Is

6:13

that? Is that an approximate approximate

6:15

number. Anything you can imagine

6:18

can be and has been, a flavor of cake just

6:20

about. But here are a few, uh

6:23

notable mentions. Will say Okay yet

6:26

Brooklyn Blackout Cake named after

6:28

the post Pearl Harbor blackout drills in Brooklyn.

6:31

What. Yeah, I've never heard of that German

6:33

forest cake Gooey butter cake,

6:35

which is a cake I made the mistake of making for someone

6:37

and now they want it every year. Um. Moravian

6:40

sugar cake a potato cake courtesy of the

6:42

Moravian immigrants in North Carolina. Enslaved

6:45

people in the South made some of the most creative and innovative

6:47

cake recipes, incorporating ingredients like coconuts,

6:50

coconut cake, chase late

6:52

chase cake, the German BlackBerry

6:55

jam cake complete with a year old

6:57

jar of jam, and Saved your Christmas

7:00

Cowboy cake made with cooked down raisins,

7:02

and of course Mayo cake.

7:06

Oh I've never had a Mayo cake and I'm still I

7:08

mean, I like the tang of like sour cream

7:10

and a cake. Yeah, listeners

7:12

sent as a recipe for Mayo cake, and spite

7:15

my intense dislike of Mayo, I

7:17

do think I would like it because I mean it's just it's

7:19

more for like texture,

7:22

Yeah, kind of like putting putting in a cake. Yeah.

7:27

Birthday cake, however, is as

7:29

mentioned before, a flavor unto itself

7:31

now um, by which people

7:34

seem to have spontaneously agreed that birthday

7:36

cake is vanilla cake with vanilla frosting

7:38

and maybe like raspberry filling and probably

7:41

sprinkles. I'm not sure

7:43

how and why everyone simultaneously

7:46

decided this. I think it must be a like

7:48

sensory. It's very pretty thing, kind

7:51

of like how pizza it's always pepperoni and

7:53

cheese. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you're right,

7:55

because my favorite cake is definitely chocolate,

7:57

but it's not as like visually

8:00

yeah, like fun fetty flavored share.

8:03

We'll get into fun oh we will, Oh

8:06

we will, we will, But

8:08

so during the height of the birthday

8:11

cake flavor madness, which

8:13

we might still be in, I'm not sure. Birthday

8:15

cake flavored Crispy Creans and Oreos

8:17

and jellybelly, jelly beans and flips,

8:19

candy coated pretzels and Peeps and

8:21

three Musketeers bars and m and m's and

8:24

air heads and red vines. Birthday

8:27

cake tea it's rohitous and herbs

8:30

and sprinkles um Birthday

8:33

cake vodka. It's a perhaps surprisingly

8:35

popular flavor for nutrition bars and way protein.

8:38

Birthday Cake yogurt and ice cream and

8:40

frozen drinks. Birthday cake popcorn.

8:42

It's coated in cake batter, infused white

8:44

chocolate, and again topped with sprinkles.

8:47

Marie Calendar once had a birthday

8:49

cake pie which was like a cream pie

8:52

topped with two layers of fun fetty birthday

8:54

cake. That's spectacular.

8:57

I I don't

8:59

know what humanity has wrought with that one.

9:02

I don't either, but we all knew

9:05

it was about to happen. I

9:08

feel like it's one of those things that, like bearing

9:10

witness to it in person, like you just

9:13

you're just instantly go insane. It's like Thulu,

9:15

You're just like, yeah, your mind

9:17

cannot just breaks yes, and

9:21

then you start putting

9:23

handfuls of it in the now, rubbing

9:25

it on your face. That

9:27

does sound like a horror movie waiting to happen. Anyway.

9:32

The flavor of birthday cake

9:35

seems to be vanilla cream and a little bit

9:37

of berry, and according

9:39

to data from Nielsen, birthday

9:41

cake flavored stuff saw a sales increase

9:43

of over between

9:48

This trend is not dead, folks, no, not

9:50

at all. One. Rachel

9:53

Sugar Perfect Perfect

9:56

I know Um, writing for Vox, said

9:58

birthday cake as a flavor. It's

10:00

the simplest kind of birthday cake, cheerfully

10:03

uncomplicated, the primary colors

10:05

of cake. Birthday cake is basic

10:08

and it is pretty, and in an ironic

10:10

twist of anti aging, it reminds us all of when

10:12

we were basic and pretty too. Wise

10:17

words wise words.

10:21

Uh, there's a place in As

10:23

I've mentioned before, I come from a very small

10:27

hometown, and there wasn't

10:29

a lot in the way of drinking

10:32

options, Like you could go to a restaurant

10:34

and get beer, but there was one place

10:37

you could go that was sort of no, there's more than

10:39

one, but there was one place that we did go. Um

10:41

and on your birthday you got a free birthday

10:44

cake shot and it

10:46

came with like candle and

10:48

it was a whole thing. I did involve whipped

10:50

cream. M M yeah, I think so. Jeez.

10:54

They were very nice, But I mean,

10:56

you don't want to do more than one birthday cake

10:58

shot. It's good that birthday

11:00

is only once a year. Yes,

11:03

that is the allotted amount of birthday cake

11:05

shots. The body can handle only

11:07

once a year. Um.

11:10

If we look at numbers, they're they're kind

11:12

of hard to nail down because there is so much cake

11:15

happening. Sure, but in

11:19

over sixteen million more Americans used

11:21

a box cake mix as opposed to making

11:23

one from scratch, and a

11:25

lot of people report a feeling that quote, it

11:28

doesn't count if you make it with a box.

11:30

I disagree, but I understand the feeling. Oh, I

11:32

absolutely disagree. Yeah, I mean I

11:34

disagree specifically because the only time

11:37

I ever made a layer cake from scratch,

11:39

I spent all day doing it and

11:41

it was just exactly

11:44

as good as one that I could

11:46

have gotten from Publix or Kroger. And

11:49

I was like, well, first

11:51

and last time for that one,

11:53

and done, as they say, But

11:56

the story of the cake is not done. No,

11:59

we have some history for you coming up. But first

12:01

a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and

12:12

we're back, Thank you sponsor, And we're

12:14

back with some history of cake, mostly

12:17

birthday cake. There's a lot of cake history

12:19

out there, Oh my goodness. Yes,

12:22

we dip into a bit of it here and there, but we

12:24

tried to centralize. We generally

12:26

do. Sometimes we're successful,

12:28

other times we're not. But alright,

12:31

the cake is largely associated

12:33

with celebrations and

12:36

especially birthdays, and this association

12:38

goes all the way back to ancient Egypt, where

12:40

the huge deal that was the celebratory

12:43

crowning ceremony a k

12:46

their birth as

12:48

a god of the pharaoh um

12:50

and it was such a big deal that the celebration

12:53

was widely adopted. If

12:56

I saw a big party, I was like, OK, able

12:58

to do that too. Though

13:01

this did not necessarily include

13:03

cake. The Bible references

13:06

a birthday celebration for a pharaoh dating

13:08

back to three thousand b C. Again

13:11

probably their birth as a god,

13:13

not their actual state of birth. Yes,

13:16

the ancient Greeks took this practice and

13:19

added dessert. This dessert

13:21

was typically a baked full moon shaped

13:24

cake in honor of the goddess Artemis,

13:26

who was the goddess of the moon, among you

13:29

know, other things. To make the cakes

13:31

glow like a moon would, candles

13:33

were lit and put on the cakes.

13:36

But backing up a step, the ancient

13:38

Romans were the first to make birthday cakes. They just kind

13:40

of did it on the deal. These

13:43

cakes were made of a mixture of yeast, flour,

13:45

honey, and nuts, and were at first reserved

13:47

for weddings and maybe the

13:49

fiftieth birthday of a famous dude,

13:53

supposedly Emperor Hadrian would send

13:55

cakes to birthday party invitees who

13:57

couldn't make it. Oh, I like that. I

13:59

know it's a power move, but I like it. All

14:02

right. If I'm getting cake, I'll

14:04

take I'll take it. Going off

14:07

of that sort of, for a long time, Christians

14:09

considered birthday celebrations a thing for

14:11

Pagans, and thus even at

14:14

least they did it first. But sometimes around

14:16

the fourth centuries, see, Christians didn't about

14:19

face and started celebrating the birth of Jesus

14:21

Christ. One of the reasons behind this was

14:23

the hope that people already celebrating the Roman

14:25

tradition of Saturnalia would sort

14:28

of transition to Christmas.

14:31

Women's birthdays weren't really a thing most

14:34

Europeans celebrated until the twelfth century.

14:36

Lots of societies didn't keep birth records

14:39

for anyone except for royalty until

14:41

like, yeah, like the Middle Ages or thereabouts. The

14:43

Greeks did, but they had those priorities like

14:45

mostly old dudes. But by around

14:48

this time, around the Middle Ages, Catholics

14:50

were keeping birth records, and it was also

14:53

common to name a child for a patron saint,

14:55

so instead of a birthday, you would basically

14:57

celebrate your name day. And I

14:59

don't know what I mean by that in Game of Thrones,

15:01

but but historically a name day was

15:03

when you'd have a party on the day um

15:06

that you're saint was celebrated, and

15:09

this is still traditional in some Catholic communities.

15:12

China also had a birthday celebration,

15:15

specifically for a child's first

15:17

birthday. If we look at

15:19

the less ancient and more modern birthday

15:21

celebrations complete with cake, we

15:23

need to look at Germany's Kinderfest,

15:26

a fifteenth century celebration held four children.

15:29

The morning of a child's birthday, the birthday kid

15:31

would get a cake with a number of candles

15:33

equaling their age plus one, the

15:35

plus one representing the hope that the coming

15:38

year would be healthy, the light

15:40

of life, as it was called. The

15:42

candles are specifically the smoke from them

15:44

were meant to bring your wishes up

15:47

to God. However,

15:49

it was a test of endurance because

15:52

no one was to enjoy the cake until dinner,

15:56

like they would replace the candles all day

15:58

as they burnt down um. The idea

16:00

of Kinderfest was that on their birthday,

16:02

a child was more susceptible to evil spirits,

16:05

so the party was partially like a form of protection.

16:08

Oh, how interesting. If

16:11

the child in question made it through the day. Could

16:13

just imagine you'd be smelling it. Oh,

16:16

I would be, and that's me um.

16:18

They would then attempt to blow out the candles

16:21

in one breath while making a

16:23

wish, and if they were successful, their

16:25

wish would come true. As

16:27

today, you were not meant to share that wish.

16:29

You couldn't tell anyone or

16:32

it would or it won't come true. We all

16:34

know that as fact. Absolutely

16:38

perhaps this was the case, or perhaps it was

16:40

this, or perhaps it was both. Because

16:42

there's a lot of history going on. You

16:45

would find birthday cakes shaped like the baby

16:47

Jesus and this was more a celebration

16:49

of him than you. And

16:52

side note, before Christmas

16:54

this year, I drove past a church marquee

16:56

that said it's not your birthday

16:59

and I was like, you don't know me

17:01

sign it could be

17:04

they don't know. It's not reserved for we

17:08

can share birth we can lots

17:10

of people do. I think that's the whole math problem.

17:13

Yeah? See, Okay, all right,

17:15

well let's talk about Count Ludwig von

17:17

Zenzidorf. Okay. In

17:19

seventeen forty six he had an

17:22

epic birthday feast and festival

17:24

complete with cake and candles. Quote,

17:26

there was a cake as large as any oven

17:28

could be found to bake it, and holes made in

17:31

the cake according to the years of the person's age,

17:33

everyone having a candle stuck into it and

17:35

one in the middle. I

17:39

guess that was pretty epic. Yeah.

17:41

When England picked up the tradition, they added

17:44

symbolic objects baked within the

17:46

cake. Coins and thimbles were a

17:48

typical thing. The coin was lucky

17:50

and represented wealth. The thimble, meanwhile,

17:53

meant you would never marry. So I guess you didn't

17:55

want that one. Dang. I mean that's

17:57

a crappy party favor. Ah.

18:00

Yeah. Anyway, apparently

18:03

even today cakes are baked with fake

18:05

coins and candies in the UK and listeners

18:07

please right in to confirm or deny. But

18:11

until the Industrial Revolution, the birthday cake

18:14

wasn't accessible to most people, and

18:16

that's because the ingredients were cost prohibitive.

18:19

Also, the Industrial Revolution is when

18:21

modern leviting agents like baking soda and

18:23

baking powder were invented. Prior to that,

18:25

you had to physically work the fluff

18:28

into baked goods by beating air into

18:30

eggs or a butter and sugar. Many

18:32

cakes prior to this would have been a denser than what we think

18:35

of today, more like a pound cake or fruit cake kind of situation.

18:38

And also this is when home kitchens started

18:40

to have ovens and the

18:42

middle class was expanding all of this. Ovens

18:45

do help they do just

18:47

cooking a cake on an open fire. It's

18:49

not fun. No,

18:52

I can't imagine it would be. And you don't

18:54

have to take my word for it. I was

18:56

on a lovely tour at the Atlanta Historical

18:58

Society one time, and uh, and yeah,

19:00

the nice lady in their kitchen was baking

19:03

a cake from scratch and just

19:05

I was just like, oh dude, and she was like, I know

19:10

I have enough trouble. My oven is

19:13

particular, but I have enough

19:15

trouble with an oven. So if

19:18

we look at um more candle traditions

19:21

or beliefs in the South, the number

19:23

of candles left lit after you attempt

19:25

to blow them out with your first breath represents

19:28

the number of years till you marry. I

19:30

assume if you're single. Oh

19:33

twist or

19:35

oh, you're right. Uh.

19:39

There's a recipe supposedly from Texas from

19:42

one for a little girl's birthday cake made from

19:44

corn meal dust, honey, a wild

19:46

turkey egg, buttermilk, butter, and

19:48

soda. Cornmeal dust.

19:51

Yeah, I don't use that too frequently

19:53

in my The recipe

19:55

specifically called for, like if you take

19:58

corn meal and you put it in

20:00

a sack and then you transfer it to another

20:02

sack, you like shake out the dust remaining and

20:04

keep doing that until you have like two cups

20:07

of corneal dust. That sounds like when

20:09

I don't have any cake flower. You know, you can

20:11

make cakes, you have to like sift

20:13

it five times, and I do it once and then

20:15

I'm like, no, no more that

20:17

that's enough. That's better be cake flower. That's

20:20

fine. None of my bake does turn out exactly

20:22

like I want them to, can't imagine. Yeah,

20:27

So, by the late eighteen hundred's birthday cakes

20:29

were fluffy, layered, filled, and frosted,

20:32

and many were decorated with writing like

20:34

a many happy returns of the day. Along

20:36

with the birthday humans name. In

20:38

eight we get a little

20:41

song called good Morning to All, written

20:43

by Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill.

20:46

Its original purpose was sort of a pre class

20:48

warm up song. It quickly

20:50

spread across the States. In

20:54

one Robert Coleman published a book including

20:56

the song but with different lyrics, Happy

20:59

Birthday to You. The phrase

21:01

happy Birthday didn't start appearing written

21:03

on cakes until after that song became popular.

21:06

Huh, and it's finally

21:09

in the public domain, it is. Yeah,

21:11

we could sing it right now if that wouldn't be super

21:13

obnoxious. I was getting I was

21:16

up. Lauren shut me down. You

21:19

can thank Lauren for that, listeners. In

21:21

nineteen o six, the science journal Nature

21:24

published a letter suggesting a superior

21:26

way to cut round cakes, assuming

21:28

that there's going to be leftovers. He was talking

21:30

about Christmas cakes in particular,

21:33

but I had to include this, okay.

21:35

So rather than taking wedges out,

21:37

which leaves a large surface area of the interior

21:40

exposed to the elements to drying out,

21:42

the writer recommended essentially

21:45

having the cake into two semicircles

21:47

and then taking a slice right from the center, like

21:49

all the way across the cake, like a big rectangle right

21:52

out of the center, like a cross section. Yeah,

21:54

and then to store it, you just push

21:56

the semicircles together and then

21:59

you don't leave an edges to

22:01

dry out. That's

22:04

cool, right, Wow,

22:06

I'm gonna show that off. Next

22:08

time I have a cake for somebody,

22:12

we have even more cake history

22:15

for you. But first we've got one more quick break

22:17

for a word from our sponsor, and

22:27

we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. But

22:30

what about bucks cake must

22:33

cake mix? Yes, yes, well

22:35

in the United States, it really took off

22:38

post World War Two, but it

22:40

was around in the nineteen thirties, thanks in particular

22:42

to a surplus of molassus. In

22:45

December of nineteen thirty, the company P. Duffin

22:47

Sons applied for a patent for an

22:50

quote invention that relates to a dehydrated

22:52

flower for use in making pastry products

22:54

and to a process of making the same. They

22:57

were really trying to make use of molasses,

22:59

and the was a way to dry it out and add

23:01

it to flour mix. The

23:04

recipe called for one hundred

23:06

pounds of flour and one d pounds

23:08

of molasses for this this thing that they

23:10

were patenting. Um so it did not skip on

23:12

any of this, and from this the

23:14

company got the idea to patent this method

23:16

when it came to cake and cake

23:19

mixes. From the patent quote

23:22

in the ordinary preparation of pastry products,

23:24

there are a large and very number of ingredients

23:26

which must be used, which means keeping a complete

23:28

stock of materials on hand. This

23:31

is not only expensive and inconvenient,

23:33

but necessitates careful measurements and

23:35

mixing, and therefore the provision

23:37

of suitable apparatus. Therefore,

23:40

in addition to the above, m satisfactory

23:42

results or failure occurred to frequently,

23:46

which represents a serious loss of time, of

23:48

money, of materials, and of

23:50

energy. The plight of the

23:52

cake maker. It's true,

23:55

it is true, no personal experience.

23:57

I don't like it. M m m m mmm. Deaf

24:00

and Sons offered several flavors of boxed

24:03

baked mixes like fruitcake, nutbread,

24:05

and brand muffin, along with Devil's Food

24:08

and Spice Cake. I set boxes,

24:10

but you actually bought these in a can one

24:12

cents for fourteen ounces in

24:15

three They submitted another patent for

24:17

a cake mix that required the baker to add

24:20

eggs. From Deaf quote,

24:22

the housewife and the purchasing public

24:24

in general seemed to prefer fresh eggs, and

24:26

hence the use of dried or powdered eggs

24:29

is somewhat of a handicap from a psychological

24:32

standpoint, and the date here is

24:34

important because it contradicts one of the most important

24:36

boxed cake myths that

24:39

the fresh eggs bit was in response to a

24:41

focus group by the man who coined the

24:43

term Earnest Dictor, who

24:46

found through his survey that women

24:48

wanted to feel more involved in baking and

24:50

thus wanted to add fresh eggs

24:52

to the mix, as opposed to using the powdered

24:54

kind already incorporated in

24:57

the nineteen fifties. Dicter did consult with

24:59

Betty Crocker, but that was decades

25:01

after the patent. Huh, maybe

25:05

just reinforced it. Yeah.

25:07

While World War Two was going on, flower

25:09

companies were preparing for the wars

25:12

end and preparing to sell convenience,

25:15

and by the end of the nineteen forties, over companies

25:18

had a box cake mix they were selling.

25:21

Of note, at first, Pillsbury

25:23

used the just add water method

25:25

as opposed to competitors Duncan Hines

25:27

and Betty Crocker. Pillsbury eventually

25:30

became a convert, though, to the fresh

25:32

eggs yes. However,

25:34

in a funny look at human psychology, it turns

25:36

out people were more likely to say they'd buy mixes

25:38

that required you to buy eggs, but that they were

25:41

actually more likely to buy mixes

25:43

that didn't require them to do that. I

25:46

find that very interesting humans.

25:50

Either way, Boxed cake sales saw a

25:53

massive slump in the nineteen fifties, putting

25:55

many companies out of business, or at least they

25:57

got rid of that particular product. And

25:59

this this is one dictor, and a survey

26:01

about women needing to feel more important to the process

26:04

by buying fresh eggs came into play.

26:06

But that might have helped.

26:10

It's really the icing, which is my least

26:12

favorite part of cake, by the way, that

26:14

came to save cakes stay. This

26:17

allowed for a lot of creativity in

26:19

cake decoration, prepackaged icing.

26:21

Yes, yes, yes. A survey

26:23

conducted in the nineteen nineties um that found

26:25

while a majority of women that responded

26:28

that they almost always make a cake from scratch, what

26:30

they actually meant is that they make it using the

26:32

box man. Yeah, fascinating.

26:35

I know, I know, I know. For a while,

26:37

my famous brownie recipe in high school

26:40

was totally a Duncan Hines boxed

26:42

mixed and people would ask me for the restaurant

26:45

I'll be like, oh, you know, it's you know, just

26:47

a little bit of this, a little bit of that, which

26:49

wasn't a lie.

26:53

But I think that kind of reminds me of aspects

26:56

and how like frosting

26:58

comes in and it gives you this thing

27:01

where you can personalize

27:03

it, put more work into it.

27:06

Yeah. Yeah. By

27:09

Pillsbury had ads for fun Betty

27:12

flavored cake, So hello, Katie, that's one

27:14

of your favorite flavors. Twelve

27:16

was the beginning of the birthday flavor cake trend. And

27:19

then in a study published

27:21

in Psychological Sciences found that when

27:23

people perform rituals before eating,

27:26

it heightens anticipation and people report

27:28

the food than tasting better, like

27:31

lighting candles and singing Happy Birthday before

27:34

eating cake. Yeah,

27:36

I can totally see that. I

27:38

like a good a good ritual. Yeah

27:40

yeah, it gets you all excited. We

27:43

sort of talked about that in our Forever

27:46

ago episode of Sugar Um.

27:48

How it's you're

27:51

probably seeing excitement as opposed

27:53

to like hyper hyperness caused

27:55

by sugar. Yeah, it's it's a little

27:57

bit of both. Yeah yeah, yeah, but

28:00

you're excited. There's cakes, there's there's

28:02

probably favors. Well,

28:07

back to that listener mail that

28:09

we read, right,

28:12

I did look into it a little bit, um

28:14

and we have a couple more traditions

28:17

from around the world. Briefly, Um

28:19

so yeah, we read this listener male about the Danish tradition

28:22

of kagaman humanoid

28:24

shaped cake and after the birthday

28:26

song is sung, the birthday human then

28:29

slits the throat of the cake man with a

28:31

knife while everyone screams

28:34

rat. You can look at pictures

28:36

these cakes can get pretty

28:39

unsettling. I gotta say, um,

28:42

And I was saying off Mike that for me, a

28:44

lot of these birthday traditions have taken

28:46

a turn for the horror because I watched so

28:48

many horror movies. Um, but please

28:51

if someone has like theo of this

28:54

and please yes, Um

28:56

yeah. I was looking around and there's a lot of

28:58

birthday traditions that don't necessarily

29:00

involved food. I tried to limit it to

29:02

the food ones. In Russia, the

29:04

birthday kid brings candy for their classmates

29:07

for all their classmates on the day of their

29:09

birth. Chocolate

29:12

cake is apparently traditional in Norway. In

29:14

Australia, I've seen buttered

29:17

bread topped with sprinkles

29:19

called fairy bread, and that's a birthday

29:21

thing, I believe. Yeah,

29:25

okay, and my favorite and I

29:27

promise it will involve

29:29

food by the end um

29:31

I read that in Switzerland, parents will hire

29:33

a clown to tease and torment

29:36

the birthday child for hours or even days

29:39

leading up to the party, culminating in

29:41

the clown putting a pie in the kid's face.

29:44

They get an actual pie in the face, get an

29:46

actual pie in the face from

29:49

a tormenting clown. And yet is it Switzerland

29:51

one of the happiest countries in the world. That

29:53

would mess me up. My

29:57

my older brother when I was four, he

30:00

had a Batman themed

30:02

party. There's somebody there addressed as a

30:04

joker, like a professional, and I wasn't

30:06

allowed to go to his birthday party because you know, young

30:09

sister, and he doesn't want to. Of course, I

30:11

went anyway, and

30:14

there's I believe video exists

30:16

of the joker clown getting in my

30:19

face and laughing and say like, oh little

30:21

girl, and I pushed him into the pool.

30:24

I was grounded. The

30:30

laugh at my face cloud. Yeah, that's

30:34

amazing, he

30:36

said, you were four, that's

30:38

so amazing. Oh

30:40

my goodness. It's really funny

30:43

too, because in the video it

30:45

looks as though I'm just

30:48

like not even listening because he was kind of to

30:51

the side, and I just suddenly

30:54

struck out pushed him. Okay,

30:58

Um, I'm so glad that there's

31:00

a video of this. Yeah,

31:02

but we need to find like a VHS player. Okay,

31:06

I'm working on it. Sorry, older

31:09

brother. If you happen to be listening, you

31:12

were right. Not all

31:18

of these traditions are great. We would love to hear

31:20

from any listeners around the world if you have

31:23

these kind of birthday traditions. Yeah, yeah,

31:25

anything involving clowns for sure, Cake,

31:29

the Evil or the better. Um, any particular

31:32

traditions to you and your family

31:34

or yeah, just from your global neck of the woods.

31:37

Yes, and this about

31:39

brings us to the end of this episode and to listen.

31:47

Yeah, yeah, Chelsea

31:49

wrote, while listening to you speak on the evolution

31:51

of the refrigerator, it reminded me of a food

31:54

my grandmother used to make when I was growing up, Tomato

31:56

aspect. I still remember my horrifying

31:59

first taste this red jello. Imposture

32:01

was beyond my ability to comprehend in my mother

32:03

later, I do explain to me that my grandmother's

32:06

day having a dish like tomato aspect at parties

32:08

demonstrated your financial status. Of

32:11

course, I've listened to your episode on aspects but founded

32:13

fun tie into the ice box and the eventual

32:15

refrigerator tomato

32:18

aspect. Oh yeah, if you're not expecting it. Who

32:21

huh. That's got to be shocking. It

32:23

does. Now that would be a birthday pray.

32:26

Oh oh

32:29

man, you could do that with like a red velvet cake.

32:31

You can make like a tomato cake. Oh my god,

32:33

oh jeez. Okay um

32:36

Genevieve wrote, I was just catching up on your

32:38

Thanksgiving episode and I heard your call for

32:40

input on big holiday meals. In

32:42

our house, it's Christmas rather than Thanksgiving,

32:44

for which we go all in. It ends up

32:46

being a multi day exercise in gastronomic

32:49

revelry. We begin by having ribs

32:51

on Christmas adam as in the day before

32:53

Christmas Eve. Then we get to the main

32:55

event, the Christmas Eve smorgess board.

32:58

I got this idea partly from these near

33:00

the end of Signs, when mel Gibson tells his family

33:02

to each pick whatever they want for dinner, and

33:05

partly from the fact that I was very pregnant three

33:07

Christmas Eves ago and thus was craving

33:09

everything. What happens is that

33:11

I gather input from everyone who will be in our house

33:14

on Christmas Eve about what they'd like to eat for dinner

33:16

that night, no matter what it is, and

33:18

then I cook all of it, no matter how

33:20

and congruous the dishes they end up

33:22

on the table together. For example, this

33:25

year, we had grilled steak and vegetable skewers,

33:27

shrimp, cocktail, beef ramen, billy

33:29

cheese steakes, stuffed peppers, and garlic

33:32

parmesan chicken wings. It was a

33:34

million small bites of many different things that

33:36

I like, rather than one huge dish of one delicious

33:38

thing, and it was perfect. That

33:41

sounds amazing. That does sound amazing.

33:43

Oh man, what an assortment to you.

33:45

I love right kind of get a peek

33:48

into someone's current state of mind.

33:52

That's beautiful. Props to whoever ordered

33:54

the ramen. I love that I

33:57

like the strip. Uh

34:00

well, thanks to both of them for writing

34:03

in. If you would like to write to us, you can

34:05

Our email is hello at the savor pod dot

34:07

com, or also on social media. You

34:09

can find us on Twitter, Instagram,

34:11

and Facebook at sabor Pod. We

34:14

hope to hear from you. Thank you so much to

34:16

our super producers, Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard,

34:18

Thank you to you for listening, and we hope that lots more good

34:20

things are coming your way.