Cake in Korea. It's a funny thing. I grew up with great cake. Cake in america is delicious. Cake in Korea is... different. It's very different. I've had some cake here that is basically bread with frosting. It ain't even cake mix that they made it with! For the most part, the cake is good. It's all great until you have something like Green Tea Cake. Is this really necessary? It taste like grass.. sugary grass. Yuk!
Being an English teacher here in Korea, I've had a ton of cake. That may sound strange to you if you're not a teacher at my school. What happens is this... We have a couple hundred students between the ages of four and seven. Every week there's, at least, one birthday party. The cake never gets fully eaten. This is when it's brought to it's final resting place- The Teacher's Room. It is here that the 19-24 year old assistant teachers have their way with the cake. There's always some left though and my class is on the same floor as this room. If I happen to stop into this room I'm always always confronted with a half eaten princess or Power Ranger cake. Yum! I can never help myself. I usually take a bite and scurry back to my class... Actually I never scurry. I usually stand their and make a joke about how I have to try the cake to make sure it's okay for everyone else to eat. Pretty corny, considering I use this same lame joke every time.
I said "princess or Power Ranger" cake. I don't mean to say that it's a rectangular cake with an edible image on top. No, It's a friggin' sculpture! The best one I've ever seen was an Angry Birds cake. It was amazing! It also tasted like plastic and marshmallows. I only tried it to make sure it was okay for... Aww shit. I suck.
I think Koreans love sweets, but at the same time they want to feel like their being healthy. The cakes in the image above are covered in fruit. Strangely enough, the fruit is covered in a weird, clear sugar glaze. Of course it's healthy! It reminds me of how you can go out to any Korean bar, drink your face off, open a menu and order a GIANT fruit platter. Booze and fruit... Healthy!
The weirdest cake I've ever had here was one that was shaped like a panda's head. It was a dome shaped chocolate cake glazed with a plastic looking frosting. It was cute. I don't like eating cute things really. I like to eat cows, pigs and other ugly animals. I only eat chicken if I know it was an adult when it was getting ready for my belly. Cutting into Mr. Panda was awful. I would feel like a total dick if, all of the sudden, a real panda walked in. I can see it now. I'm cutting into the cake and in walks the fuzzy little guy...
"Mike!"
"What?!.... No!... It's not what it looks-"
"We're endangered for christ sake!"
"I know, I know... It's just that the cartoon cake version of you is so delicious and-"
"and you just want to make sure it's okay for everyone else to eat!... You disgust me!"
Unless I had some bamboo flavored cake, which I'm sure is readily available, I think it'd be pretty hard to calm the little guy down.
So yeah, cake in Korea- Pandas, princesses and Power Rangers. Try it and make sure it's okay for someone else to eat. (See how annoying that gets)
