Ask Sammy-Jo: The Eternal Struggle between Cake, Pie, and Cookies

Dear Sammy-Jo,

What do you think of the eternal struggle between Cake, Pie, and the lesser known, but clearly superior, Cookie? Why do you believe such a rivalry began? Do you think that politics played a roll in this tragic war? An example: A Congressman was having naughty sex with their intern and was caught, but instead of letting it be released and have the scandal all over the internet, he/she began saying that cookies are fattening whereas Pie has less calories.

– Saydian

Dear Saydian,

An inherent rivalry between Cake, Pie, and Cookies has not always existed. They are, by definition, inanimate objects. Their only purpose is to fill our stomachs with sweet delicious noms, but it is this exact reason that we – connoisseurs of desserts and “fat-kids” alike – create a territorial relationship with our favorite sweets. (That is just the way the cookie crumbles.) Their original conception never established an exact date for the “War of the Desserts”, but rather the rise of global obesity; portion sizes grew along with waist sizes. Every time you step into a restaurant, the waiter asks you if you want dessert, clearly aware of your bloated belly and reclined, hunched posture. This is the “Hansel and Gretel” effect. They fatten you up, and their pockets grow with a little more green bling each time. It’s economic cannibalism. Are we eating the desserts or are the desserts eating us?

Either way, the politics of desserts has little to do with the established social mentality of Cake verses Pie verses Cookies. Can you name all the different flavors and variation of cakes, pies, and cookies off the top of your head? There are such combinations like Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake and Oreo Cookie Double Chocolate Pie. These combinations of Cake, Pie, and Cookies not only turn our Candy Land board game dreams into reality, (Which is such a tease, by the way. I demand Peppermint Patties and Gum Drops be supplied in every box.) but their diet inhibitors work over-time when paired with one of their rivalries. They create a fantastic menajahtwa with other diabetic coma-inducing baked goods.

The process of assessing each dessert individually becomes more than just a list of ingredients. There is a cultural/sub-cultural element in some cases, especially cake, most notably in the recent instant-classic video game, Portal. GlaDOS promises cake at the end of the game, for completing all of her tests and enduring her catty, sarcastic comments. It soon becomes clear that there is no cake. The cake is a lie, or as GlaDOS so eloquently puts it, “Your promised reward is merely a fictitious motivator”. This is not the only “cake fail” in the history of memes or literature. Marie Antoinette’s infamous “let them eat cake” remark paints a bleak picture of her economic understanding. While bread and cake are both excellent sources of carbohydrates, cake contains sugar. Lots of it. It would be harder to make and more expensive to make for the impoverished commoners of Marie’s time. Marie enraged her people as much as I was when I left a piece of red-velvet cake by my seat at my cousin’s wedding, only to discover that it had disappeared in the two minutes that it took me to order a beer. I just wanted to have my cake and eat it too, like the chubby kid in “Matilda”; if he didn’t die of insulin shock, he surely died of obesity.

Most notable idioms involving cake:

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Writing that paper will be a piece of cake.

Having sex with her was just icing on the cake!

It was bad enough that he was alcoholic, but his new meth addiction just takes the cake!

Pie is an interesting dessert. You accent it with whipped cream instead of frosting. It is round, like a cake, but baked differently and it does not have a fluffy texture, like a cake. Sometimes, the textures cross desserts. The texture of a lemon meringue pie is like that of a cheese cake, which clearly points to the skewed moral values of cake; it’s trying to pass itself off as a pie, which, again, is just another lie. Different flavors of pies have also been for not-so-subtle sexual metaphors. “Cherry Pie” is about a woman’s…essence. Bad puns also fall into the sector of pie names: “I’ll meringue your PIE” and “Are you a peCAN pie, or a peCAN’T pie”. There’s also the old-school 90’s saying “having sex is like eating an apple pie”. I do not believe that. (When was the last time you ate a salty pie? Oh wait, I forgot about the meat pies. Do you prefer white or dark meat?) This rumor was only concocted by the writers of “American Pie”, who probably got stoned constantly and laughed about the idea of someone having sex with an apple pie. Can it even be considered sex? It’s more of a humping, or a mashing of the pie, with your pelvis. Would that be an effective way to make mashed potatoes instead? No one wants a mashed-up pie. How else would you calculate its circumference? It is also a chart, and comes in a three-dimensional shape on a two-dimensional piece of paper. It can tell you the profit margins of your fattening-factory restaurants.

Most notable idioms involving pie:

Shut your pie-hole!

The 99% want their slice of the pie too.

Renée could use a little slice of humble pie.

That immigration test was as easy as pie!

There is an age-old debate between the British and the Americans: The Biscuit verses the Cookie. One consistency within this difference of vernacular is the classic chocolate chip cookie. A cookie is a cookie no matter what side of the pond you are on, but once you start categorizing Oreos and Jammy Dodgers, those are biscuits according to the British. We know different. If it has the texture and crunch (or a melt-in-your-mouth softness) like a cookie, then it is a cookie. Biscuits, not to be confused with dinner rolls, are round, fluffy pieces of bread eaten during the holidays, average dinners, and the most important ingredient in Biscuits and Gravy.

If a Congressman had sex with an intern, I do not believe he/she would be able to keep that scandal a secret by merely creating a diversion about the number of calories in cookies verses cake/pie. A bribe would be most sufficient in keeping that type of secret. Since we’ve already established that the cake is a lie, and a pie would be too awkward, (but maybe not for Bill Clinton) the timeless “I’ll give you a cookie” would work best in this situation. Take “The Ides of March”; The post-coital scene between Meyers and Stearns could have gone down like this:

Steven Meyers: You know, we can’t tell anyone about this.

Molly Stearns: I could be persuaded not to tell.

Steven Meyers: I’ll give you a cookie.

Molly Stearns: Okay.

And we must not forget Fred Durst’s oh so poetic use of the word cookie: “I did it all for the nookie […] so you can that cookie and stick it up your…YEAH!”

Most notable idioms involving cookies:

Track-housing, or “cookie-cutter” homes, became a symbol of the modern American family after WWII.

She’s such smart cookie./He’s such a tough cookie.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

If we are to accept that only one dessert is superior to the rest, then I believe Pie clearly comes out on top, not only for its consistent recognition among other cultures and truthful appearances, but for its ability to calculate its own circumference. It’s smart and seductive, and can keep the bad sexual puns to a minimum. Cake is just filled with empty promises and lies, and cookies are ineffective, cheap methods of bribery. Cookies don’t translate well into British vernacular, and Fred Durst took away some of their credibility by suggesting someone take a cookie and stick it up their YEAH, all for the sake of rhyming.

I leave you to think about this Saydian: Muffins. < or > than Pie? You are what you eat.

Sincerely,

Sammy-Jo

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