Red Velvet Cake is a Fucking Lie

I went most of my life without ever trying Red Velvet cake. It just wasn't a thing that existed in my life.  Maybe it's because of I grew up in Northern California and Red Velvet was more of a Southern U.S. thing.   Maybe because I was raised by forward-thinking parents and had intelligent friends.  Who knows? I'd never even heard of it before seeing the famous armadillo cake in Steel Magnolias.  Then some time in my 30's, out in the wilds of the world it was at some party I was at and I tried it. 

But one told me what it was supposed to taste like. 

Anyone who knows me well knows I have set up some seemingly arbitrary food rules for what I will eat. Such as:  If it smells like vinegar, don't eat it. If it's a creamy dairy food that isn't ice cream or whipped cream, stay away. Pickles are not supposed to be sweet.  For savory food I usually avoid red colored foods because they are basically ketchup or ketchup based.  It's a whole different ball-game for dessert foods. Most people will probably agree with me on this one... red dessert foods will taste like cherry, raspberry or strawberry.  That's pretty standard and has never steered me wrong other than with this stupid cake. 

When I ate Red Velvet cake for the first time, obviously I was expecting a rich, sweet, acidic berry flavor, which of course never came. I thought someone fucked up when they made it. Then it was explained to me that it wasn’t supposed to be fruit flavored.  What the fuck is it then?    I asked what flavor it was supposed to be because it just tasted like regular-ass cake to me.  No one could really tell me what flavor it was. Some said they thought it was chocolate but that's just stupid.  I know what chocolate cake tastes like, this was not that.  So it would seem that it’s just red for no fucking reason and has cream cheese frosting. What’s the big fucking deal? 

I did some digging on the internets and found that it dates back to the 1800's and was originally just a softer  more "velvet" texture cake because of the ingredients they used.   It didn't turn red until 1930's when congress was lobbied hard to pass a law that lowered regulations for food coloring.  And some dick-head food dye tycoon in Texas popularized it as a red cake just to sell more food dye. So it's red because of capitalism.   If some hipster tells you it's red because in the depression they didn't have many ingredients and had to use beets  to sweeten the cake batter they're full of shit. It was because some fuck-stick wanted to make more money.

It got popular again because of that shitty movie Steel Magnolias (Julia Roberts' character dies.  No Spoiler Alert that movie can eat shit)  for some reason now it's trendy-as-fuck.  They're making cupcakes, pop-tarts and god damn Oreos now.  Just add red dye to the normal shit and we can sell more units... Genius!!!  

Also I'm not alone.  The Joy of Cooking and James Beard think it sucks too.  

You don't like Red Velvet cake. You just like cake and you're supporting a dessert based on corruption and greed.  Be ashamed.