Don’t Spoil The Cake

The comedian George Carlin once wrote, “Chocolate cake is called chocolate cake for a reason–it’s chocolate. Leave it alone. Put the strawberries in a nice sherbet if you must. Or put ‘em in a bowl by themselves, over there near the raspberries. But please don’t spoil my chocolate.”

If there is one problem I have with food here in Argentina, it is with cakes. There seems to be an obsession with cakes where they just have to contain canned peaches or pineapple. If I’m really unlucky they have both. Don’t get me wrong, I believe some fruits go well with cakes, particularly any kind of berry. Leave the peaches to cobblers or crumbles and just leave pineapples to a fruit salad or something.

A couple days ago a relative had a birthday. Now there was a cake waiting for the evening’s festivities, but during the day an on-the-job celebration cake was needed. Oh, just so you know by the way, in Argentina, where I’ve been at least, when it is your birthday, you are expected to bring a cake to work to celebrate your birthday. Anyway, the birthday boy didn’t bring a cake so my wife and I went out to pick one up at a panaderia, or bakery, at the last minute. The display cases were filled with all sorts of delicious looking creations. Some were coated with whipped cream and chopped hazelnuts, others had chocolate icing, while a few were drenched with crumbled meringue cookies. Back in the day, when I was fresh off the boat so to speak, I would have inquired about what types of gooey creamy fillings those cakes contained within their moist mass. Expecting to hear mocha or dulce de leche mousse. Strawberries and cream. Nowadays, I’ve learned that it is best to just get to the point, and then proceed with the process of elimination.

“Do any of these cakes not have peaches or pineapple?”

Back to the bakery the other day, that is exactly what we asked. The answer: No sorry. Ten cakes and not one of them had something other than peaches and pineapple. Since time was running short we had to pick one. Ho hum.

This is not just with bakeries either. I can’t count how many times I’ve attended parties, dinners, lunches, tea time, even my own birthday where some awesome looking cake is laid on the table and my hopes were dashed right when the first slice was pulled out. Please don’t have peaches. Please don’t have peaches. And there they were in clear view. Orange, slimy, tasteless pieces of canned peaches.

The hard part is that you can’t really say anything because you don’t want to hurt the feelings of whoever slaved away at making some of these cakes. What I do let time slide a little and then make it known that I’m not a big fan of fruit filled cakes.