black cake

That’s not a slice of meatloaf. It’s something I buy by the slice once a year, at Christmastime, wherever I can find it. Then I eat one bite per day, in a portion small enough to starve a canary, to avoid waking up hours later in a stupor on my kitchen floor.

That’s black cake. It’s a traditional Christmas dessert made throughout the Caribbean, and like all regional foods, the recipe varies from area to area — even house to house, on the same street. I’ve had this lovely stuff three times, from three different Jamaican restaurants here in New Jersey, and all three were different in flavor and texture.

But it always contains dried fruit, wine, and rum — left to ferment in the cake for months — and burnt sugar, to which it owes its color, ranging from dark brown to genuinely inky black. I only know this because I’ve read up on the cake, which is helpful, because every restaurant owner I’ve asked blithely says they have no idea what’s in it. The FDA wouldn’t love that, but I do.

One place, in western New Jersey, gets his from a woman in north Jersey. She makes it year-round, but he says at Christmas, she adds a few more glugs of wine to it. Another says his mom makes it not annually, but more precisely ‘whenever she feels like it.’ She hasn’t felt like it in a couple of years, so I’ve had to shop around.

This year, a few places sold the cake whole, beautifully black and sticky, in a tin. But there’s only one of me, and it would take me until next Christmas to finish it all or see above: kitchen floor. Finally, I found a place that sold it by the slice. The tiny shop looked as if it been painted by an Oompah Loompah whose Sherwin-Williams A-Plus points were about to expire, and on the sidewalk in front was a handwritten placard that advertised 'Cow Foot on Fri.' Obviously the place sells itself.

The elderly proprietor shuffled behind the counter and said to me, ‘Come here, mama.’ She doused a slice in even more wine, then gave it to me. It practically drove me home. And it was sublime.

Afterword

Today is the 11th day of Christmas — after tomorrow (Twelfth Night), the season ends. Thought I’d give the season a proper send-off by sharing this boozy little tale.

But I’m mindful of another, less cheery anniversary tomorrow: the insurrection in 2021, when a MAGA mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. It was during the Covid lockdown, and my team and I were working from home. I received a text from my supervisor, asking if I had any communications drops planned for that day, and if so, to hold them. After checking the news, I understood why. Four years later, we’re facing a fresh — yet tinged with déjà vu — hell.

Today, a post I wrote that urges readers to join me in Indivisible, the progressive grassroots organization that fights for democracy, hit over 1,000 views, and several readers wrote that they’ve signed on. Now I’m urging you.

Eve’s apple started out as (mostly) a blog about how we experience food as a culture. It has evolved to include foraging, traveling, and all of the other adventures I strap my boots on to experience. This year (and the next few) will surely be a turducken of lunacy and meh and heartbreak and bloody victories. I choose to open my eyes and ears to life on this this big round ball, for better or worse, and not peer at it timidly from between the window blinds. Doing that can’t help but color me like the facade of an authentic Jamaican restaurant, and make me want to add my own colors as I go. They’re going to vary, much like a black cake. Goofy, reeling, exuberant — whatever.

I invite you to join me and build community here. Use the comments or go to the chat (it’s open; sending you a link after I send this) to hang out and support each other. Grab a paintbrush, climb aboard the turducken, and ride with me.