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Cake: A Global History
Let them eat cake! What birthday, wedding or children’s party would be complete without it? It is the ultimate food of celebration in many cultures throughout the world, but how did it come to be so? Cake: A Global History explores the origin of modern cake and its development from sweet bread to architectural flight of fancy, together with the meanings, legends and rituals attached to cake throughout the world.
Nicola Humble reviews the many national differences in cake-making techniques and customs – the French, for example, have the gâteau Paris-Brest, named after the cycle race and designed to imitate the form of a bicycle wheel; in America there is New England’s Election Day cake or the Southern favourite, Lady Baltimore cake – and what they reveal about the nations that make them. From Proust’s madeleine to Miss Havisham’s decaying wedding cake, the symbol of her betrayal in Dickens’s Great Expectations, Humble also relates the food’s place in literature, art and film, and what it can symbolize: indulgence, gender, motherhood and guilt.
With a large selection of mouthwatering images, Cake will appeal to the many readers with an interest in food history, social, cultural, literary and art history – or, indeed, just in cake.
Nicola Humble reviews the many national differences in cake-making techniques and customs – the French, for example, have the gâteau Paris-Brest, named after the cycle race and designed to imitate the form of a bicycle wheel; in America there is New England’s Election Day cake or the Southern favourite, Lady Baltimore cake – and what they reveal about the nations that make them. From Proust’s madeleine to Miss Havisham’s decaying wedding cake, the symbol of her betrayal in Dickens’s Great Expectations, Humble also relates the food’s place in literature, art and film, and what it can symbolize: indulgence, gender, motherhood and guilt.
With a large selection of mouthwatering images, Cake will appeal to the many readers with an interest in food history, social, cultural, literary and art history – or, indeed, just in cake.
156 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
11 people are currently reading
318 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 29, 2022
What were the earliest cakes like? How did cakes evolve, and how did cake-baking (and cake-eating) traditions diverge across countries? When and how did Christmas cake come into being (this one surprised me, as did wedding cake)? How does cake appear in literature? Where and how did cupcakes become so popular? And more.
I enjoyed this book; it offered some interesting insights into cake, without going so deep that it became tedious or repetitive. Humble manages to be informative as well as readable, and embellishes the text with some excellent (and mouthwatering) excerpts from literature, all the way from Marcel Proust’s madeleines to the Cranford ladies’ cake, to (admittedly not mouthwatering) Miss Havisham’s bride cake. There are plenty of reproductions, of old paintings, advertisements, photographs, postcards, etc, all depicting cake in some form or the other.
True, this book isn’t strictly ‘global’: there are no mentions of cakes from (say) India (I can think of several possibly British-origin but now indigenous cakes like mawa cake and Allahabadi cake). Or even from elsewhere in Asia and Africa: there is the citrusy meskouta from Morocco, the Accra banana peanut cake from Ghana, the potato and cashewnut bolo polana from Madagascar, the Japanese kasutera… all made in the conventional ‘cake’ style of Europe, but now indigenized enough to be distinctly non-European. But none appear in Cake: A Global History.
However, Humble does mention Japanese ‘Western cakes’ as well as Chinese moon cakes, so I suppose she isn’t being completely Euro-centric, either. And yes: the recipes at the end of the book include one for a classic Latin American tres leches cake. So, I partly forgive that omission of most cakes non-European/non-American.
By the way, several of those recipes are very appealing. One—boiled fruit cake—I’m definitely going to try.
I enjoyed this book; it offered some interesting insights into cake, without going so deep that it became tedious or repetitive. Humble manages to be informative as well as readable, and embellishes the text with some excellent (and mouthwatering) excerpts from literature, all the way from Marcel Proust’s madeleines to the Cranford ladies’ cake, to (admittedly not mouthwatering) Miss Havisham’s bride cake. There are plenty of reproductions, of old paintings, advertisements, photographs, postcards, etc, all depicting cake in some form or the other.
True, this book isn’t strictly ‘global’: there are no mentions of cakes from (say) India (I can think of several possibly British-origin but now indigenous cakes like mawa cake and Allahabadi cake). Or even from elsewhere in Asia and Africa: there is the citrusy meskouta from Morocco, the Accra banana peanut cake from Ghana, the potato and cashewnut bolo polana from Madagascar, the Japanese kasutera… all made in the conventional ‘cake’ style of Europe, but now indigenized enough to be distinctly non-European. But none appear in Cake: A Global History.
However, Humble does mention Japanese ‘Western cakes’ as well as Chinese moon cakes, so I suppose she isn’t being completely Euro-centric, either. And yes: the recipes at the end of the book include one for a classic Latin American tres leches cake. So, I partly forgive that omission of most cakes non-European/non-American.
By the way, several of those recipes are very appealing. One—boiled fruit cake—I’m definitely going to try.
October 31, 2011
Part of Reaktion's Edible series. Like every book in the series, it's a brief overview of the entire history of cake. One of the strengths of this book (and it's true of virtually every book in the series) is that it's nicely illustrated. The tone is also very readable, and I enjoyed that. It is, however, very brief, which may bother some readers. But because I've never seen a standalone history of cake, I was thrilled to find this one.
May 25, 2019
I love cake and I love Nicola Humble, so I loved this book! 🍰😀❤️
February 6, 2021
An interesting read, but I don't think that the author actually ever described what a cake consisted of.
February 21, 2021
A fascinating look into a food that is as much a symbol as it is a consumable. One of the best Edible editions to date.
August 11, 2013
Delightful romp through the creation of cake both as a foodstuff and a cultural icon, from what is a cake anyway and what makes cake different from bread or biscuits, to the symbolic role of cakes at rituals and rites of passage. As well as cultural history, technical developments such as the invention of baking powder, and how the cake mix became accepted into the American baking tradition are covered.
A particularly strong chapter is the one about cake in literature, as might be expected from a professor of English literature.
The book is also very nicely illustrated.
Just one thing that I thought was missing was a few more references to cake in film. There are two movie stills used as illustrations but perhaps there could have been a few more examples of how making cakes have been used a plot devices or to reveal character. I'm thinking of the scene in Bridesmaids when the lead character makes a single, perfect, elaborately decorated cupcake which she then scoffs herself, alone. I guess other movies are more focused on pies, such as Mildred Pierce using her pies to create a successful business and Waitress, where Jenna's pies are a form of self-expression. Perhaps surprisingly there's also the role of white cake in Tarantino's Django, where the cake represents the decadence of the South; a luxury item furnished to the privileged thanks to a system built on unbearable cruelty and horror.
As well as the history and culture there are also a few recipes at the end for some very singular traditional cakes.
Well worth a read if you like baking; informative and charming.
A particularly strong chapter is the one about cake in literature, as might be expected from a professor of English literature.
The book is also very nicely illustrated.
Just one thing that I thought was missing was a few more references to cake in film. There are two movie stills used as illustrations but perhaps there could have been a few more examples of how making cakes have been used a plot devices or to reveal character. I'm thinking of the scene in Bridesmaids when the lead character makes a single, perfect, elaborately decorated cupcake which she then scoffs herself, alone. I guess other movies are more focused on pies, such as Mildred Pierce using her pies to create a successful business and Waitress, where Jenna's pies are a form of self-expression. Perhaps surprisingly there's also the role of white cake in Tarantino's Django, where the cake represents the decadence of the South; a luxury item furnished to the privileged thanks to a system built on unbearable cruelty and horror.
As well as the history and culture there are also a few recipes at the end for some very singular traditional cakes.
Well worth a read if you like baking; informative and charming.
July 16, 2014
One of the best books I have read this year. The writing is clear, concise, evocative and engaging. The research is carefully considered and presented. While a loose chronological narrative is deployed, there is both depth and density to the analysis.
The complex nature of 'the cake' - as a definition distinct from breads and biscuits - is demonstrated, alongside the changes in its history. The chapter on 'postmodern cakes' was short and can be the basis of future research.
Terrific and inspirational, this is a fine book. Read it.
The complex nature of 'the cake' - as a definition distinct from breads and biscuits - is demonstrated, alongside the changes in its history. The chapter on 'postmodern cakes' was short and can be the basis of future research.
Terrific and inspirational, this is a fine book. Read it.
January 26, 2015
I read this for a SECRET PROJECT but it's actually very enjoyable just as a book to read! There are all kinds of interesting illustrations and CAKE FACTS and things about CAKES IN LITERATURE and it's the sort of thing you could read in an afternoon...perhaps while BAKING A CAKE, just an idea.
February 24, 2014
As enjoyable as a slice of cake.
Interesting historical notes.
Good references to literary mentions and briefly of contemporaries - Nigella, Martha, Magnolia.
Interesting historical notes.
Good references to literary mentions and briefly of contemporaries - Nigella, Martha, Magnolia.
June 13, 2016
an o.k. quick read. I'd never thought before about the connection between oven size/wealth and the homebaking and cake.
and after finishing... I noticed cake EVERYwhere.
and after finishing... I noticed cake EVERYwhere.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews