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.
Be it a birthday or a wedding-let them eat cake. Encased in icing, crowned with candles, emblazoned with congratulatory words-cake is the ultimate food of celebration in many cultures around the world. But how did cake come to be the essential food marker of a significant occasion? In Cake: A Global History, Nicola Humble explores the meanings, legends, rituals, and symbolism attached to cake through the ages. Humble describes the many national differences in cake-making techniques, customs, and regional histories-from the French gteau Paris-Brest, named for a cycle race and designed to imitate the form of a bicycle wheel, to the American Lady Baltimore cake, likely named for a fictional cake in a 1906 novel by Owen Wister. She also details the role of cake in literature, art, and film-including Miss Havisham's imperishable wedding cake in Great Expectations and Marcel Proust's madeleine of memory-as well as the art and architecture of cake making itself.Featuring a large selection of mouthwatering images, as well as many examples and recipes for some particularly unusual cakes, Cake will provide many sweet reasons for celebration.
