Out of the Kitchen
4:30 pm / October 11, 2012
The History of the Word Cake photo
Subscribe to Bon Appetit

The History of the Word Cake



Think of a cake. Though you might have baked a huge variety of them, a simple image probably comes to mind: a round tower of sweet dough topped with some kind of icing (maybe with some candles, if you’re feeling festive). When the word first made its way into the English language in the 1390′s, though, “cake” had more to do with shape than with birthdays. Pretty much any little lumps of cooked dough were called “cakes,” or in the really early days, “kaaks” or (as in modern Icelandic) “kaka.”

It wasn’t until the 15th century that “cakes” became associated with the sweet stuff, no matter what shape they were in. For a couple hundred years, cakes bopped along, just being their sweet little selves, until “icing” showed up in the 1760′s. Not at all coincidentally, this is when tropical colonies started focusing on growing sugarcane, and refined sugar started becoming widely available in Europe. The growing supply fueled demand as Europeans developed serious sweet tooths, which led to more colonization in sugar-growing climes and, hundreds of years later, a world in which Twinkies are cheaper and more abundant than apples.

It used to be thought that “cake” and “cook” came from similar roots, but the theory didn’t pan out: “cake’”s ancient history lies in a root meaning “lump,” while “cook” comes from a prehistoric word meaning, unsurprisingly, “cook.”

While we’re on the topic, a side note on a common “cake” adage about getting what you want: the phrase originally went “wolde you bothe eat your cake, and have your cake?,” which makes sense. After you eat your cake, you no longer have it. The now commonly heard “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too” is ridiculous. How else are you supposed to eat something unless you have it in the first place? The only situation in which you couldn’t have your cake and eat it, in that order, might be if the cake was being fed to you–and if that’s the case, odds are you don’t need any advice.

KEYWORDS: Cake, Eat Your Words
Loading Comments...