Once upon a time, there was a cake that had been baked over centuries; its ingredients fusing in the heat to form a moist, rich, lush chocolate cake. While it wasn’t perfect, it tasted delicious to anyone with a taste for chocolate. Or to anyone with good taste, really.
One day however, a people without the taste for chocolate came along and decided that the cake did not taste right. A violent, privileged bunch, they demanded that all the cake’s brown sugar be extracted and replaced with white sugar.
Those who originally baked the cake were confused. Brown sugar had been mixed in with all the other ingredients a very long time ago. It formed part of the cake, and was infused throughout it.
The people with no taste for chocolate would not listen though. The cake obviously had something wrong with it, they figured. Otherwise it would taste like vanilla cake. Eventually, they cut out a slice of the cake, convincing themselves that this slice contained all (or enough of) the brown sugar.
And they replaced it with a wedge of vanilla cake.
At first, the wedge looked awkward. It was shorter than the rest of the cake and – although it slotted relatively neatly into the cake – its diameter was slightly too wide. Neither did it address the continued existence of brown sugar in the cake.
Nevertheless, the people without taste for chocolate were happy; convinced that – while it was certainly not as good as vanilla cake – the cake was better than before.
After awhile, the people without taste for chocolate left. And over time, the chocolate cake people acquired a taste for vanilla. They tried to cut the wedge’s diameter a little and raise it with additional vanilla slices to the same height as the rest of the chocolate cake, so it was at least well-shaped.
As time passed, they developed a distaste for chocolate, consuming more and more of the vanilla part, and importing more and more replacement vanilla wedges, much to the profit of those who hated chocolate.
Some said that the chocolate cake with the vanilla wedge tasted more vanilla than vanilla cake. They tried exporting it to the people without taste for chocolate, convincing themselves that they had made marble cake. Others described it as chocolate cake with vanilla layers.
While such cakes certainly exist, these suggestions are sadly laughable to anyone with eyes to see. Because – deny it though we might – the people do not have marble cake. Or chocolate cake with vanilla layers.
We have a chocolate cake with a (somewhat random) vanilla wedge in it. And the brown sugar is still very much in the cake, affecting its taste far more than we care to admit.
Whether we like it or not.
Let the wise listen.
Kobby Ankomah Graham 