A Piece of Cake
Tiffany Funk

I don’t use this phrase, nor do I want to start using it. Usually I avoid maxims as there are other ways to communicate an idea that are much more specific, i.e. “Lifting that egg carton shouldn’t be a problem because I’ve been working out,” or “I would think that any role requiring a tango scene would be terrifically easy for Patrick Swayze to slip into as he is quite the accomplished dancer.” That said, the phrase “a piece of cake” is far superior to “easy as pie.” Observe:

Cake innards + frosting = cake
Crust + pie innards + fancy latticework/meringue/whatever = pie

It’s obvious that cake is far easier and, therefore, superior in this specific dialectical arena.

However, cake, as we all know, can be a complicated or simple endeavor, depending on the recipe. This is the recipe for my favorite cake:

There are egg white stains on it because angel food cake demands an obscene amount of said ingredient. I’ve tried to make this cake using regular flour; I’ve omitted the extract; I’ve left out the cream of tartar. Needless to say, the end result was not angel food cake. I often have problems with following recipes, and this might be the reason why I once ended up with a batch of flat lemon bars with the sugar accidentally omitted. They didn’t taste good, but if I remember correctly my father ate the entire batch with butter.

He eats everything with butter. He also puts ice cubes in his milk.

Still, I imagine pie being far more difficult, and that’s not only in the baking, but in the slicing. A “piece of cake,” if you will, is pretty easy to handle. Pie is sloppy. I hate getting sugary things on my hands. There’s never a proper washroom around, and then my hands feel sticky for the rest of the day. It’s torture.

However, according to the OED, the phrase “a piece of cake” comes from the Latin securus lubricus Kakus, which translates as “easy piece of Kakus,” referring to the rather prolific 2nd century prostitute Kakus who went on to run a rather successful bakery before dying of what could only be assumed was syphilis.

All that said, cake is somewhat easy but more importantly yummy, and syphilis is bad in any case.
 

Next: Cake Photos #1