The Cake

For celebrations in particular a birthday it’s a consumption of many things but the cake is an integral part of a birthday party. A typical birthday consists of balloons, music, food, presents, and other things but in particular the birthday cake can’t miss. Why has it become an integral part of birthdays? Does it have some type of symbolism to it? The birthday songs are used to celebrate the birth of the person, the candles on the cake can represent how old the person is turning, the blowing of the candles is to make a wish, the guests are there to celebrate with the person who is getting older, the presents are as a way to congratulate, and food in general can simply be for the guests and so on. What role does the cake play in all of this? You basically see cakes in little kid’s birthdays, older persons birthdays, quincean~eras, celebrations, and so forth.
In particular birthdays you may see a variety of decorations on the cake. For children in particular you see things such as princesses or Disney characters or some type of hero figurines on top. Are they used to symbolize what the birthday person likes or should like. For older persons you may see the cake turned into the form of a female torso for men and the opposite for women. For just about any celebration besides birthdays you always have a cake present. I’ve seen cakes with pictures right on top, cakes in the form of a book for a reading club, cakes in the form of a soccer ball for my cousin, cakes forming a stair till you get to the top and find the newlywed figurines, and many others. Though I know it has come to be tradition to have a cake I have formed my own conclusion.
When at first cakes where simply oval or circle shaped they have now taken on a new tradition; they now take on all these different shapes, I think its presence though is more on a symbolic way. It could combine flavors that a person may like, it can have a picture of the birthday person, take on a symbolic shape for a holiday such as a heart for Valentine’s Day, or have figurines or something on it that might show a fantasy that we have or something that we live for.