My Oh My, It's Birthday Pie

Someone baked an amazing cherry pie

I never met a cake I didn't like, but I've never met a pie I didn't love. I like cake, but perhaps I've eaten too many very average sheet cakes at office parties to get very excited about cake.  Betsy is away for the summer, but to celebrate my birthday she arranged for this absolutely beautiful cherry pie to be delivered. And yes, it tasted as good as it looks, with a perfect crust and slightly tart cherries. She also arranged the delivery of a lobster roll and potato chips, the traditional accompaniment to cold lobster, to be delivered, too. My dream is next year in Maine, but this year in New York, I had my exact choice of dinners. I appreciate all of her work to organize my surprises. 

After I had a very generous slice of pie, I started to ponder why we eat birthday cakes and not birthday pie or birthday bread or birthday oatmeal. Thanks to the genius of the internet I had my answer. Cakes made of flour and nuts and sweetened with honey were served for weddings and special birthdays in Ancient Rome. As early as the Fifteenth century German bakeries began to make cakes for weddings and special birthdays. These cakes were for the very wealthy. 

The tradition of  the birthday cake -- as we have come to know it -- arose in 18th century Germany with the Kinderfeste. Each year on the morning of a child's birthday a cake was presented with candles for the age of the child, plus an extra candle for the light of life, or as we always said, "One to grow on." The Industrialization Revolution made it then possible to mass produce cakes and made the birthday cake a popular custom. This doesn't answer why cakes were adopted and not pies, but I found the origin of the birthday cake fascinating. 

It's been a wonderful two days. I've loved hearing from many, many friends and family members from literally all over the world. I've enjoyed great food, phone calls, texts and cards. There are still a few more celebrations to come, a little more subdued than what might have been, but they still will be times of good wishes and laughter. And tomorrow night for dessert, I've got birthday pie awaiting me. 

Thanks, too, to my wonderful blog friends. I'll be blog visiting tomorrow to thank all of you for the good wishes. Please stop by for Random Five Friday tomorrow. I've got some great news to share! 

As ever, thanks for visiting and take good care.