What do I mean by 'Cake of Apathy'?

Before I start, apologies for the delay in this post. I have been really busy preparing for my move to university next week, so I haven’t had a lot of time for writing. And I haven’t even started packing yet! Anyway:

Ok, so there is cake! To be specific, this blog is named after it (in a manner of speaking) so this post will briefly explain why I chose ‘Cake of Apathy’, what I mean by it, and throw in some interesting stuff about one of our favourite foods worldwide.

Derived from the Old Norse word kaka, cake has been around almost since the first agricultural civilisations started growing and milling wheat and baking it into bread. We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians used to make sweet breads (not to be confused with the delicious animal product of the same name), by using dates and honey as a flavouring.

The origins of Cake in this country probably came from the medieval period, where the term would have referred to small, flat, round bread buns. At the time, sugar was an incredibly expensive import good, and so the lower classes would have been unable to make cakes with much resemblance to those we consume today.

However, those with wealth and power within the kingdom would have used sweet baked products as a display of their status at feasts and other celebrations. They would not only be able to afford the expensive raw ingredients (cocoa would also have been particularly choice), but also to afford the skills of bakers that would be able to make the cakes themselves. While ovens can now be temperature controlled with a simple turn of a dial, ovens in this period were powered using coal, which would have made perfect dessert baking a skill that only trained chefs would be able to pull off.

Nowadays, a simple sponge cake can be made using a recipe that can be learned in seconds, but the use of cakes as a celebration food remains part of our culture, and are often a celebration in their own right - So far as leading some crazy creative bakers to make cakes that look too good to eat.

So, what does this have to do with the title of my blog? Firstly, cake represents the subject of the blog: Food. But it’s more than that. It represents celebration. It represents children blowing out candles and wishing their dreams will come true. It represents a magical process that takes 4 simple ingredients and transforms them into a delicious, fluffy treat. Cakes represent all the good things in life.

But it also represents something else. It represents indulgence; excess; even greed. It represents an unhealthy desire to consume. Anyone who has been on any sort of diet knows that cake is a tempting devil, willing us to fail in the pursuit of our goals. And beneath the decorative topping and thick, luxurious icing, cake hides from the outside.

But when I was thinking about these things, it occurred to me that what cake also represents is apathy. Cake represents a supply chain that nobody thinks about. Wheat was grown from seed and ground into flour. Butter started life as milk, churned and set into blocks. Sugar, once a long cane or a root in the ground, carefully boiled, extracted and refined. Processes that we know occur, but seldom give a second thought to when we are consuming the finished product, or even when we are making it. And why should we?

But within the food supply chain, that rarely considered group of processes that makes the food magically appear on our supermarket shelves, hide a vast array of questions. Ethical, environmental and even legal questions are rarely thought about, let alone discussed.

I don't want to slice the cake into pieces, but delve in with a great big spoon and find out what is really inside.

Next week: New post, new topic. Thank you for reading :)