Eating Styles: Cupcake Edition!

It’s Thursday again, which means it’s time for another Eating Styles post! This week, you must pause, look deep within, and ask yourself…how do I eat my cupcakes?

Now I know that pie is the new cupcake, and people are getting sick of cupcakes, and Eick hates cupcakes. But even though cupcakes are the “overplayed” food equivalent of Green Day’s “Good Riddance,” there’s something nostalgic and timeless about them, and Eating Styles could not call itself a truly comprehensive weekly food poll if we didn’t at least give them a head nod. Plus, they’re just so darn cute!

It’s a tough question, but one we all have to face at one point in our lives: to eat the frosting first, or to not eat the frosting first?

Eating the frosting first brings one back to Kindergarten birthday parties (okay, maybe eleventh grade ones, too…last year…whatever). Your mom would bring in those cute cuppin’ cakes all arranged nicely on a decorative plate and a veritable sugar carnage ensued, with ten little hungry maws all chomping straight down on ten pillowy mounds of pink frosting all at once. This eating style is a visual manifestation of the id, a submission to the desires of a moment, a flash instinct of survival.

Eating the frosting last, on the other hand, requires more care and talent. Not only do you have to resist that pile of creamy sugar, you have to hollow out a cake cave underneath it first. If you’re holding your cupcake, this has to be done with an awkward tilting of the head. Teasing the cake out with a fork always brings that perilous midpoint where the whole thing tips over and you’re suddenly at risk of frosting-on-plate smearage. If this method succeeds, however, the rewards are fluffy, sweet, and mind-blowingly delicious.

For the more temperate eater, there’s always the eat-as-you go option. I salute you guys for your ability and self control – it takes a bit of skill to get that perfect frosting-to-cake ratio.

Finally, there’s the option to not eat the frosting at all. Believe it or not, there are folks out there who find frosting too rich, or too sweet, or choose not to indulge for health reasons.

Which are you, So Good readers? The carnal frosting annihilator who inhales that mound of velvety goodness as soon as possible? The adventurous cake-hollower who believes good things come to those who wait, and leaves their frosting for last? The well-rounded eater who eats the frosting as you go? Or do you not eat the frosting at all, leaving it on your plate or kindly giving it away to some sugar fiend? Choose your eating style and explain why you eat the way you do in the comments section below.

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