Why We Put Candles on a Birthday Cake? The Weird True History Behind Your Cake and Song

Hey everybody, I'm Nancy May and this is Family Food Stories

where every dish has a little bit of history and every kitchen, yes, has a

secret, and we know you've got one too

Oh, it's probably in the back of the refrigerator somewhere.

Molding.

No, no, no, no, no.

it's fermenting.

It doesn't mold I'm Sylvia Franz, and this is episode 100

100.

Can you believe it?

But before we start, our 100th episode ask, would you go to

Podcast.FamilyTreeFoodStories and share this episode with

somebody that you care about?

Because it can be your gift to them, and it's our gift from us to you, too.

I wanna open this show with a question that I've never even

thought about before, Sylvia

Oh, please ask it

Why do we set kids' birthday desserts on fire?

Oh, when you put it that way, I can see

toddlers hovering over a flame

Yeah, not good.

I'm serious.

We actually set a dessert on fire and then put a kid in front of it who's

four years old with a birthday hat, sing Happy Birthday, help them blow out

the candles, and hopefully you haven't had too many glasses of wine yourself

Oh, that's only when they're one or two.

By four you c- you have to kind of like sober it up a bit but here's what got me.

Not everybody does this.

Whole world doesn't do cake at all

Well, that doesn't sound like a birthday to me, but no cake?

Oh, just wait for it

So I'm gonna guess it is Greek because everything we've ever said before

somehow happened to start with the Greeks

It isn't Greek and it has nothing to do with the moon, but

we do have a few Greek stories here

then what is it?

It was actually a security system and that's

all I'm telling right now

A security system.

I'm calling ADT just in case,

Well, ask me again a little later and I might tell you

Okay.

then take this one instead: There's only two birthday parties in the entire Bible.

Did you know that?

Only two?

Yep, only two It was Pharaoh's and Herod's, and one of them,

the royal baker, is executed and the other, well, that's John the Baptist,

and we know what happened there.

Off with his head.

Yuck

So both of the birthday parties in the Bible end in death.

that explains a great deal about the next 1,500 years

We know, pretty gruesome.

But on that note, because we do have a tradition to uphold,

glasses up to 100 episodes

we Are drinking Shirley Temples I understand

Well, it's 10 in the morning, but I might look for

something a little extra later on.

but there's a reason that we have Shirley Temples, and

we'll get to that later, too.

But here's to 100 episodes.

Ching ching

So thank you for being here, and I'm so

glad you're listening today

And here's something you can use before we go anywhere else.

At the next birthday party you go to, light one extra candle, one

for each year, plus just one more

and Stay with us and find out why it was once against the law to

also sing Happy Birthday in a movie

Plus the one thing to say to somebody who hands you a cake

that fell apart that's at the very end, and that's why we love this episode

But let's start with your mom, because she baked you exactly

one birthday cake her entire life

Thank goodness.

Exactly one, and it was a total catastrophe.

. The entire cake held up by a whole box of toothpicks stuck straight in

Oh, I've seen those cakes before.

Oh, she told everyone how she stayed up all night on it

and it was the first cake she ever made me, and thankfully the last

So what happened every birthday thereafter?

Oh, she ordered from the Carvel ice cream parlor.

It was a tradition, an ice cream cake every single year except that one

Wow.

I love Carvel ice cream cakes, but you were okay with that one?

Oh, of course.

My birthday is the best day of the year except for Christmas and no added drama

So here's what I wanna know though.

Where did the carousel that you told me about come from on your cake?

It came off the Carvel cake from the year before.

She saved it, and when she made The Disaster, she set

that carousel right on top

Year after year as a store topper

Yep, Because to her, the carousel was what made it a birthday,

and of course she thought it was beautiful

I'm sure it was.

Yes, and I never questioned it until this week

Then you need to know where the carrot cake actually came from.

Because like your mom's cake, it was kind of an accident

Oh, how?

Well, if you're from the Northeast, you know the old

commercials from Tom Carvel, and that's kind of what he sounded like.

In 1934 Tom Carvel is driving an ice cream truck of frozen custard around

Hartsdale, New York, and he gets a flat tire over a hot Memorial Day weekend

So let me guess.

The custard is melting, so he pulls over and sells it soft right there to whoever

walks past so he doesn't lose his profits

Well, you know, you gotta love an entrepreneur, and

that's pretty much what happens.

So that is how the beginning of soft serve started.

The whole category comes from a guy who couldn't fix a flat tire

fast enough to get back on the road

So it makes sense that my childhood exists because

of a roadside damage control

I know, right?

But here's the part I keep coming back to.

You said ice cream parlor?

Was that a real place?

It actually was.

It was kind of a storefront, not really a parlor, but you walked in

and somebody would write your name on a cake right in front of you

And now I notice what happened to my family.

My mother probably drove to the parlor.

I admit Years later, I drove to Dairy Queen

So the errand survived in your house and well, I guess so did the cake

Yes, and The parlor is the part that mostly went away

And here's what gets me is that I can make really great cakes.

I've made them since I was 11 years old from scratch, but of course my

kids like the ice cream cake better

Dairy Queen year after year and you bought them deliberately

just because they wanted them.

I think that's pretty sweet

Well, we bought the biggest cake that we could buy

The

biggest?

the biggest on purpose

So why was it so large,

Well, because we didn't want a birthday to last just one day.

There was cake on Tuesday, there was cake on Thursday, the birthday that

just keeps going on in the freezer.

So what was really cool is my oldest, his birthday was in June, so we would

buy a big one that would last till the - end of July, to my middle child,

was born in September, and then we would have it until almost October 1st.

So the whole entire summer and even including the dog days of

summer, we had ice cream cake

Well, I think that's pretty cool actually.

It's called conservation

they wanted those ice cream cakes because

they knew it would last longer

So your mother bought it because she couldn't bake and?

. Sylvia France: And I bought it even though I know I could.

Two completely different reasons for the same ice cream cake

And so

? Sylvia France: Everybody says that the homemade one is the one that counts.

So was my mother taking a shortcut or was she doing better than just trying?

Well, let's hold that because I'm not sure you're

gonna like the answer to that one

I've got a whole episode to sit here and worry about it

Yes, you do.

But because most of history, nobody was doing any of this before

So For most of human history, nobody

even knew when they were born

Yeah, nobody?

That seems kinda weird

Well, it was actually just ordinary people.

there was no system for writing it down unless you were royal or rich.

The date just wasn't recorded anywhere

So birthday was kind of a paperwork invention, I

guess, like a birth certificate

Oh, genealogists love that, so we're glad we have birth

certificates yes, it needed paperwork to exist, and the earliest celebration

anybody points to isn't even a birth date

So that seems kind of even more bizarre.

So what is it?

Egypt, around 300 BC, a pharaoh gets crowned and

and he's considered a reborn god.

That's the anniversary that got written down

Of course, the first birthday party was a promotion for a god or a guy.

um, always for a promotion, which I, you know, there's nothing

wrong with that and hold that loosely.

It's a popular history m- more than a really hard record

So what's next?

Of course, the Romans.

They actually throw the first party of an ordinary living person a

sweet cake of flour, olive oil, and honey but again, for the men only.

Dear

Where's Abigail

I know we miss her.

I know

Here's the part that I didn't expect, though.

The early Christian church banned birthdays just totally and outright

. They were pagan, astrology, protective spirits, all of it

That's one reason.

What's the other?

Well,

origin, a theologian or teacher way back when argued that you were actually born

into sin so the day you were born is a day you really should mourn, not celebrate

That is so stark, even for the third century

I know, right?

And they mark the day a saint died instead.

but the real birthday is the one that you were born into heaven

So your death day was considered your birthday?

That's kinda weird

not.

I don't wanna start there.

But that's our two parties from the top of the show, Pharaoh's

baker and yes, John the Baptist

And Ending in execution, if those are your only examples on

record, you're not throwing one either

No, I'm not.

so let's talk about when it all turns around

It's Christmas, more or less.

You know, the most wonderful time of the year.

Once the church puts a birth on the calendar for Jesus,

birthdays stop looking suspicious

So hold on just a second because there's a version that you

definitely heard and it's not true

Oh, please do tell.

Which one?

Well, the not true one is, of course, with the ancient Greeks.

And the Greeks made a round cake for Artemis, the goddess of the moon, and

put candles on the cake so the round cake would glow like the moon, and the

smoke from the candles would carry your prayers up to heaven or to the gods

Well, I read this in about nine bazillion places.

You know, I kind of like it since I am a moon child because I am Cancer

Now, that's pretty sweet, but not so sweet for now.

And so what's wrong with this?

And how is it wrong?

Well, there's no documented link between the

two cakes and our birthdays.

One historian's flat-out assessment is that the Greek and the Roman

origin has no support in the record.

It is pure folklore

Not even in National Geographic?

Nope.

Their own piece admits that there is no direct record of candles

being put on cakes for the gods

So where does this come from?

Well, hold tight because fire was sacred in a lot of ancient places.

That part is real.

Everybody connected the dot that's plausible, and nobody ever could prove it

And it's enough story that it just kept traveling.

If it's told 1,000 times, it

becomes a

A thousand… What they say, a lie told a thousand times

become a truth for about a century now

So I have the answer.

. 300 years ago, and demons

Ooh, that sounds even more fun.

18th century Germany, there's a children's

celebration called Kinderfest or translated into Children's Festival

And that's the one with the cake and the candles?

Cake, candles, music, games.

One candle for each year, plus an extra one in the middle

So what's that extra one for?

It's called Lebenslicht, the light of life

Ooh, I like that one.

That's such a lovely name, at least for a candle

It is until you hear why it's burning.

you know that German studies professor at USF, Margit grieb ? She

gets exactly quoted for this

Ooh, so USF in Tampa?

Yes, it's 20 minutes from my kitchen and I know you are

on the board of economics at USF.

I am

She explains that people believe children were especially

vulnerable on their birthday.

That was the day evil spirits could reach them

Ooh, that sounds like such a good story.

So I guess the candles were kind of a protection

That's the read, but she's careful about it though.

She calls the links to what we do now indirect, kind of

a curvy, not a straight line

Well since we're drinking Shirley Temples, unless they're spiked,

we should be walking a straight line.

So why don't you take me on that path?

So you light the bedtime and keep them burning all day.

If one goes out, you replace it right then instantly

So these candles are burning all day.

That kind of sounds like pyrotechnics to me

All day .. and the smoke was the channel, .. A steady stream going

up meant heaven had its eye on your child

Ooh, and the cake is just sitting there?

The cake is just sitting there and nobody touches it.

Even my brother would not take a bite, not until the sun

goes down and danger's passed

So a child gets to sit there, stare at a cake, and drool,

the whole thing burning for 12 hours.

Sounds like torture to me

Yes, they stare at a cake dripping with wax the entire day, but

we know the story that my brother took a bite out of my pink birthday cake.

No.

only one my mom, my only, the only one my mom

made, he took a dab out of it

Well, all right, I hope he got the toothpick out first,

but the other one is a vigil

That's what it is.

And then at sunset, the child makes a wish, blows them out,

and finally gets a slice of cake

Which is probably loaded with that wax and which is the only

part that we actually kept today

We kept the last 30 seconds of it and threw the rest away.

No more demons

Yeah.

Good.

I like that part.

Birthday candles come from 18th century Germany where parents

lit one candle for each of the child's life plus an extra one to grow on and

kept them burning all day to protect the child from harm and evil spirits

Well, that actually sounds sweet from a parent's perspective and

it's a lot to hand a five-year-old

and that isn't even the earliest record of it

so the earliest written record isn't a child's at all

Really?

I was waiting for that.

I knew , you had, had done some research

I certainly did.

Because back in May of 1746, no, I wasn't there , a guest named Andrew Frey

writes up a birthday festival in Germany for Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf

Say that three times.

I'm so glad

Zinzendorf.

I'm trying to get my German accent going here.

So what did Ray actually say?

Well, a cake as big as any oven could bake it.

It should have holes in according to the number of years of the person's age,

and there had to be a candle in every hole, and especially one in the middle

That's our cake in 1746

Correct.

And some sources say that it was really 1747, so we'll just

call it mid-'40s to stay honest.

Because we are.

And here's what got me.

Zinzendorf was actually a Moravian bishop

So what does that have to do with it?

the Moravians came first, Pennsylvania then Old Salem in

North Carolina, which is my family's part of the world in both states

So the first candles on record belonged to a church that

ended up in your backyard again.

Well, when your family gets here in the 1600s, what can I say?

Somebody was carrying that across the ocean while my

people were already down there.

And there's one more piece of this ritual with a story you won't believe, the song

So what about the song?

I'm presuming Happy Birthday?

Exactly.

For most of your life, it was against the law to sing Happy Birthday

in a movie without paying for it

Ooh, some greedy SOB.

A actual law against singing Happy Birthday

Yes.

… Can you believe it?

The most sung song on the planet, and one company was pulling about $2

million a year off of royalties from it

Whoa.

Well, I just sang happy birthday to my dear friend Diane on the phone today.

I'm gonna check my wallet, but I don't even know how that's possible

'cause I don't have that money in it.

Well, back in a minute and we can figure out

why it's not in your wallet

So stay tuned.

We'll be right back

And we're back.

. And I was about to try and pull $2 million out of my, well, wallet.

It must be a big wallet

No.

But in 1893, two sisters in Louisville, Kentucky Patty and Mildred

Hill were actually kindergarten teachers

Teachers

Yeah, they wrote this little greeting song for their classroom.

It was not a birthday song at all.

It was a good morning song

So the birthday song was actually a song to say hello?

Yeah, the tune is hello.

. Somewhere in there, people swapped out the words, and by the 1930s, the birthday

version had taken over completely

So, and then somebody claims it, I'm gonna guess

Absolutely.

A publisher called Sumi registers a copyright in 1935 that eventually

lands with Warner Chappell

Who actually starts charging for it?

And I'm gonna guess that teachers don't get a dime or an apple.

no, they did not.

So they had , roughly 2 million a year earned in licensing.

Not when you sing it at your kitchen table.

It was film, television, and anything commercial

So that's actually why every chain restaurant has its own birthday

clapping song, and they don't sing the plain old Happy Birthday to You song

No, but I do like the sombreros, which I did in-

make my ch- children endure.

Those places weren't being creative.

They were dodging an invoice

Oh, well, that's pretty sharp too.

I always assumed that that was a branding decision and not

a licensing decision, though

- Sylvia France: Everybody does.

It was a legal decision wearing a branding costume, and it

ran that way for many decades

So I'm presuming that it has ended

? Sylvia France: A documentary filmmaker sues them in 2013

And in 2000, and in 2015, a federal judge rules that the 1935

copyright only covered the actual piano arrangement, not the words

so they made $2 million a year and they

never owned the lyrics at all

Yeah, I call that highway robbery, That's correct.

Warner/Chappell settled the next year for $14 million, , and the

song went into the public domain

I could only guess how much they had collected by then

Well, I guess I can close my wallet now, . but it was apparently

$50 million by most estimates

And it was all based on two school teachers who wrote

a hello song for five-year-olds

I know.

The most valuable four bars in music until a judge unwound the whole thing

I do brand work for a living, and that one still gets

me, and I'm sure it does you too

Absolutely

. Sylvia France: Now the part that changed how I think about the whole day, because

we're not only the people doing this

No, we're not.

let's start with the one you keep bringing up

Oh, it's Korea.

On birthday you eat miyeok-guk, seaweed soup.

I think it's kind of like miso soup

Yeah, but still, for breakfast?

I'll take pancakes instead, thank you

Well, in Vietnam they have pho for breakfast,

so I guess it's an Asian thing.

I'm glad I'm in Florida.

, Sylvia France: here's why.

So on the day you were born, you ate what she ate.

The day points back to her as it should

So that reorders the entire birthday celebration

It does.

We spend our birthday being celebrated, and they spend it remembering who

did the work and gave birth to them

So there's a question for your own mom, dear listener.

What did she eat the week that you were born, or the day you were born?

Nobody ever asked that.

So ask it and write it down somewhere that isn't on your phone.

Okay, I admit I had a pastrami sandwich from an amazing deli

the week my oldest was born

Well, i'm gonna guess my mom was eating a snow cone

because I was born in a blizzard

I'm gonna be thinking about that for quite some time.

Me too and guess what?

, China has two of these

So the first one is longevity noodles.

One single long noodle and you're not supposed to bite through it

So what happens if you bite it?

Well, yeah.

Here's the deal.

.. Superstition says you're cutting your own life short if you

chop it or bite it in half.

So people actually carefully slurp, ah, very carefully to make sure that

their life doesn't get cut short

And the second one is the one I love.

. Steam buns shaped and blushed to look like peaches for their elders

Well, we did a whole segment on peaches, didn't we?

Oh yes, Father's Day, the fruit of immortality, , and here it is

again on grandmother's birthday table

Mine, mine is actually a lot less deep because we're

heading on over to Germany

Again,

again

where the rules I understand go backwards from ours

Well, you gotta tell me about backwards

So you throw your own party.

You buy the drinks, and in a lot of places you bake your own cake and

carry it to work and the party itself

I might need the royalties from Happy Birthday for this one.

So we wouldn't survive that one.

and do not wish anybody a happy birthday early in Germany either, . because

in Greece and in Germany, wishing an early happy birthday is bad luck

And I have absolutely done that, so apologies

to Matthew who lived in Athens

Well, you better stop it now.

But before we leave our world tour, you owe me the reason for the Shirley Temple

I do, and it started somewhere strange.

There's no traditional birthday drink anywhere.

Okay, but , for 400 years of cake lore and folklore, a glass or a

drink has nothing to do with a birthday?

Every list I found is just generic party booze or champagne

except one, the Shirley Temple

So, um, tell me more about that

It was 1930s Hollywood.

The story goes she was out at dinner while the adults had cocktails

and she had nothing fun to sip

Of course she was Shirley Temple.

She was adorable.

She was always fun, so somebody had to make her something that she could enjoy

Yes.

Ginger ale, grenadine, and a cherry.

And I do admit I've had them a couple times when my

grandfather took me out to dinner

And my folks used to always get one for my sister

and myself when we were out too.

And the three restaurants that claim it are Chasen's, the Brown Derby, and

the Royal Hawaiian, and nobody has ever actually settled who made it first

And she loved it, presumably

No, she hated it.

She told NPR in 1986 that they were too sweet and she called

them in typical Shirley Temple style, "Ew, that's icky." She had

nothing to do with even inventing it

So she spent her whole life being handed a drink she couldn't stand?

Well, she was polite about it at least every single time

But look at what it actually is, the only drink

ever invented so a child could feel included at a grownup's table

Which is the same instinct as, the cake

Same instinct as the whole day

. And the cake, when does a regular family actually get one?

This is the part I like because it's kind of economics.

Sugar and white flour were originally luxury goods.

A frosted cake was a rich person's object.

Let me guess, until factories

Of course, it's always something like that.

Mass production drops the price of sugar, flour, and yes, baking powder,

and suddenly a middle class family can do what only the wealthy people did

So the modern-day American birthday cake isn't ancient.

It's actually industrial

Yep, the cake is industrial, which is where

it gets a little complicated

Oh, complicated how?

- Nancy May: Well, in 1950s, General Mills puts out a Betty Crocker mix or a

cake mix with an egg already in it, you know, the powdered kind, and all you

had to do was add water, mix, and bake.

That was the whole job

It sounds like a runway hit to me

Well, you think you would've had one, but it kinda stalled,

so they bring in a psychologist named Ernst Dichter to find out why

So what did he find?

Well, they should have called in the women first but he

found that women actually felt guilty.

It was too easy.

It didn't even feel like they were making anything or doing

anything special for their family

So he takes it out because of psychology, not to save money

Correct.

He takes out the powdered egg and you have to crack a fresh one and add that egg,

and sales actually took off from there

I have told that story in many pitch meetings

And but here's the bend then.

Because food historian Laura Shapiro looked at it and pointed

out what everybody leaves out

Which is?

Well, fresh eggs just made the cakes taste better.

the complete mix, , the original one from the Betty Crocker stuck

to the pan and had kind of a poor texture and tasted too eggy, believe

it or not, with the powdered egg

So it sounds like it was more of a chemistry

issue and not a psychology issue

Well, I think it might've been a little bit of both.

Because not General Mills, but now Pillsbury kept on doing the same

thing and sold the complete mix with no problem and did just fine

That's really annoying, but I do believe it

I know it is annoying, But the tidy version is just a little too tidy

But I'd argue it stuck around for 70 years because

it's pointing at something real

Which is what?

That the egg was never the person eating the cake.

The egg is for the baker.

It's proof to yourself that you actually did something

Which is the answer to your question from minute four in the show.

You're not going to love it though.

Uh-oh.

Say it though

Your mother skipped the part that was about her.

She went straight to the part that was really about you,

kind of like adding the egg

Aw, that sounds so sweet.

And she can tell everybody how wonderful she was.

it's a mom thing.

She knew she wasn't a baker, so she knew exactly what her child or her daughter

wanted, and that wasn't a shortcut.

She was paying attention to you whether you knew it or not

And I did it with a kitchen full of flour.

I could have made the boys anything, but I bought the one they

actually wanted, the ice cream cake

Correct.

So the gift was never the effort.

It was knowing who you were actually feeding and why

that reframed the entire thing I believed walking in here

And it's why I wanna tell you about my dad, because this

is kind of like the same story, but from a different side of life.

It starts with his 98th birthday

Your dad, you've told the stories, and you love him so much

I do, and I'm gonna tell it to everybody here.

Because my dad, well, we did the whole thing.

Everybody was there.

98th birthday, although he thought it was 99.

There was champagne, and we had a house full of people

So I only can guess how much champagne there was

Well, it was gonna be a big hoopla, and it was.

So I was in charge of the glasses, and I kept everybody's full.

Nancy

Yes, including Dad's.

He was, after all, 98, and at the end of the night, he leans over to Millie,

our lead aide, and says very quietly, "I think I'm just a little drunk."

I love it.

He turned himself in

Well, kind of.

He did turn himself in and she got him to bed safely, 'cause he did ask for help.

And then the girls and I kept going after everybody else was asleep and

had gone, still toasting him and my mom

It sounds like the good kind of a long night and a long day

Oh, it was.

We've got other stories from that night too.

But there was also birthday 99

Oh, how could it be better than 98?

Well, first of all, he had a 99th birthday.

That was a good one.

But he was in the hospital that morning that he turned 99, in cardiac

care, and that was the last time he was ever there in the hospital.

Kind of thank goodness and not so.

Oh, Nancy

I know, but the nurses on that unit were just incredibly

special, and nobody asked them.

They went out on their own and they bought him a birthday cake, a card which they

all signed, and a big bouquet of balloons

How amazing it was on their own

They did.

And they found out somewhere, somehow, that chocolate was my

dad's favorite, so they went out and they got him a chocolate cake, the

most delicious chocolate cake ever.

And they all came into the room and sang him a big happy birthday

Those nurses were amazing that they did that

They were.

They did that, and I'm telling you, that was the best chocolate

cake and probably one of the best birthday memories I've ever had

I don't think it had really anything to do with the chocolate cake

No, it wasn't about the cake.

for sure

They found out that chocolate was his favorite.

That's the whole thing right here.

They cared about your dad before they even bought the cake

Yes.

And that's the part, like I said, I'll always remember and the look

on his face, as tired as he was

which brings us back around because this is our 100th episode

And it turns out 100 is a real milestone and real rituals attached.

You know, Dad said he wanted to get to 120.

I think we've got a few more in our shows, don't you, Sylvia?

I think we're gonna make it to 220, to be honest

and more.

So what happens next?

So can you tell me a little bit about what happens when

somebody actually does turn 100?

Well, in the UK you get a letter from the monarch.

Well, in this case, it's now King Charles, and you have to apply.

It's not automatic

Here in the States, you can request a greeting card signed by

the president, but Ireland is the one I love because you get paid to be 100

Ooh, I think we need to sign up for that one.

But who pays you?

It's called The Centurion Bounty: A Letter From

the President and 2,540 Euro

Ooh, for being alive?

or maybe having 100 podcasts.

And every year thereafter, , they send you a commemorative

coin, a new design each year

And there's a practical problem at that age

You can't put 100 candles lit on a cake.

At least it's a hard one.

The frosting melts into kind of.

A fire hazard

So what do people do?

Can they buy something on Amazon?

Well, pretty close.

There's actually a product for it.

It's a tiered stand that goes around the cake, and yes, it

actually holds 100 candles safely.

We're gonna have to find that and do one ourselves.

… Sylvia France: So , it sounds like someone built a scaffolding for candles

. Nancy May: Yes, scaffolding … Because we're not giving up on fire for sure

So five things to take with you, and we're trading them here

One, light the extra candle, one per year plus one for the year ahead

That's called Lebenslicht, the light of life.

10 seconds to explain it to a kid, and they'll remember it,

Two, if anybody tells you your birthday candles came from

the ancient Greeks they are wrong

Nope, it's 18th century Germany, and it's worth remembering how

far a good story travels with nothing under it, good folklore or bended spoon

Three, ask your mother what she ate the week you were born

That's the Korean idea.

The day points back at her.

Ask it.

Write the answer down somewhere permanent.

You know, paper and ink

Mm, or our book.

and four, don't wish anybody happy birthday early.

In Germany and Greece, both count as really bad luck

And if you're the birthday person over there, you're hosting.

You buy the drinks and you bring the cake

You might need those royalties.

Five, stop asking whether you made it or anybody else made it.

Ask who it was for

My mother couldn't bake, so she bought the cake.

I can bake, and I still bought an ice cream cake

And the nurses bought the chocolate cake because

they found out what he loved

The gift was never the effort.

- People get what they actually want, and when somebody does it for you, say thank

you first, even if it's falling apart

For sure.

So the next time anybody asks you why we put candles on a cake

It isn't Greek and it isn't about the moon.

It's 300 years old, it's German, and it started out with a shield from the demons

We should probably do this for an October show instead.

But here's our 100th episode ask of you.

Tell us about your cake and your birthday stories

.. Sylvia France: Tell us about the one that fell apart, the one that somebody stayed

all night to make, the one you still make, and the one that someone truly appreciated

And send it to us on our show page at podcast@familytreefoodstories,

or post it in our Facebook group also, Family Tree Food Stories.

we read every one.

We'd love to put your story on the next show

… Sylvia France: You wanted to write it down somewhere first, possibly in our

book, Family Tree Food and Stories, but it's important that it's somewhere

permanent for when you're done talking

And if this show has been in your kitchen, which we hope, or in your

ears in your car while you're driving, any part of these 100 episodes, send it

to somebody else that you know likes a good story and, yes, something delicious.

It can be your gift to them because it's our gift to you

That's the present.

Glasses up

Glasses up to 100 episodes,

Or to anyone who poured an extra glass of champagne for their dad.

And to the ones who told them that they love them and that they're beautiful.

And next week we're talking about, yes, Peter Pepped up Pickled Peppers.

Say that three times fast.

That really sounds like maybe a stinky

but a harmless episode to me

Well, here's the problem.

A lot of what you will read about, where pickles comes from was written by a

trade association, and there's a lot more

Written by the industry.

That's not the first story I've heard about that

No, no, no.

and then reprinted as history by outlets you don't trust.

Stay tuned because we found the marketing copy that traces back on this one.

So, as we always like to say, every meal has a story, and every story's a feast

And a few secrets along the way.

So bye everyone.

Thank you so much for listening to our 100th episode.

Happy cooking and happy experimenting

Bye-bye.

Till next time.

Cheers.