Why Do We Eat Our Cake Last?

There is a dinner party unraveling at my house, and I have escaped to my bedroom. In my experience, all three-year-old screaming children sound about the same. (No offense, I’m sure that yours, or your grandkids, sound different. Better, somehow.)

But I’m 84, sick with a cold (why isn’t it called a “warm” because that is more like what it actually is?), and grumpy. Do you think that’s why my adult children sometimes call me “Grumpa”?

After dinner I excused myself and retired to my bedroom. The place where the lamp on my side of the bed isn’t working. That’s all right, as the old joke goes. I’d rather just sit in the dark. It suits my mood.

Dinner sometimes begins with an appetizer. Carrots and celery. Or toast covered with…whatever. Or little mushrooms filled with – actually, I don’t want to know. Are they there to awaken the appetite, or to put it to sleep?  The dictionary definition states an appetizer is supposed to “stimulate” the appetite. Or “increases the anticipation for what is to follow.”  For me, a delicious appetizer (times fifteen or twenty) doesn’t increase my anticipation for dinner – it IS dinner.

But many of us enjoy dessert the most. And dessert is almost always last. Dessert comes after what used to be my least favorite course – vegetables.

But why save the best for last?  Because we’re already full and won’t eat so much of it?

No.

Because dessert doesn’t clearly fall into one of the four food groups?

Probably not.

I’ll tell you why cake is last. And there isn’t really any other sane explanation.

We eat our cake last because that’s what our parents required. And you and I will be darned if we’re going to let our kids have fun before doing something they don’t like first. They can only watch television after they’ve finished their homework, and they can’t have dessert until after they’ve finished their vegetables. My father insisted that I “finish everything on my plate” before touching my dessert. Perhaps that’s why I weighed almost 270 pounds earlier in my life.

At any rate I restate the title question:  Why do we eat our cake last? What would happen if we ate our cake first, and vegetables later? Would the world fall apart?

Tomorrow I’ll start my day by doing the things that bring me the most pleasure.  I’ll tackle the vegetables after that.

Alan