“Let them eat cake” is supposedly an ignorant, seemingly innocuous comment that is attributed to Marie Antoinette when she learned that the peasants in France were suffering from a famine due to the shortage of bread.
This notorious quote instigated people to condemn how the upper class in France were oblivious to the desperate situation the country was in. Although this story is accepted as a disingenuous truth, it still doesn’t withdraw the correlation of cake with the wealthy.
Brioche is a French pastry which is known as the highly enriched form of baked bread. Brioche contains a much higher content of egg and butter in its recipe allowing its tender texture to be created. Its slightly puffy and delicate shape makes it a fine, elegant pastry with a fancy, delightful taste.
But not all people were able to purchase such elegant pastries off their budgets. Most often than not, brioche was served with either a supplement of chocolate chip or several assortment of fruit. Therefore, brioche is usually served as a dessert, which was a typical part of a meal for the upper class. This extravagant dish wasn’t a common sight for a typical meal in the lower class of France, especially during the bread shortage while King Louis XIV (The husband of Marie Antoinette) was in reign.
Even today, a cake is a symbol of a lavish embellishment that serves no purpose other than to fulfill unnecessary personal satisfaction. Although this statement might be far-fetched, a cake could be served as an epitome of decadence. I am not suggesting that those of us who blew candles on our birthday cakes or ordered a multi-layered cake for a wedding should resent ourselves with an inundating feeling of guilt. All I am suggesting is that a tiered serving tray full of untouched cake for decoration, or even an excessive amount for anyone to finish, is nothing but an utter waste and a sign of greed. It is just an uncomfortable fact to me that a brioche or simply a cake is basically a same step towards making a simple loaf of bread, but instead required a greater amount of the same ingredients to satisfy our palette. Why not use those ingredients to bake more loafs of bread and feed the hungry? Cakes aren’t even healthy anyway. Right?
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