Devil's Food Cake
By Ché Enrique Muñoz Ramírez

DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE
by Ché Enrique Muñoz Ramírez

When grandpa Cliff died when I was 8, he left me a gold necklace, a Waterman fountain pen, and a soap doll carved to look like me. Mom had the gold necklace appraised and found out that it was a fake. That's why she allowed me to wear that necklace, which looks like a snake eating its own tail but my mom didn't understand that I would never lose it. The soap doll scared the living bejezus out of me because it had lines etched around its body, and I would not play with it. I still have grandpa's beautiful pen, which writes smoother than butter sliding on a hot pan. I only use it for the important things in life when a simple ballpoint pen will not suffice. When my husband Barret and I bought our restaurant, The Bonny Vie, I used my grandpa's pen to sign the deed. Grandpa Cliff would have been proud of me. I remember him every time I use it but if there was anything that I remember most about him, it was the meal that Grandma Vicky cooked for the funeral.

Grandma Vicky cooked everything that my grandpa loved: French onion soup with slices of homemade bread, spaghetti with meat sauce, breaded pork cutlets, and - of course - devil's food cake. Grandma, who was already a great cook, did something different for our own meal. She made it magical. I still remember how delicious it was after 20 years. I don't exaggerate when I say that was the most delicious meal ever.

Our family told wonderful stories about Grandpa Cliff as we ate, and although I could chuck this up to the fact that they wanted to talk nice things about grandpa - I knew better. Grandma's delicious food made them remember. The food had a stronger affect on me because when I ate the devil's food cake, I felt my grandpa's arms hugging me while I breathed in his scent of old leather and new soap. Then I heard his voice.

"Fern, come over here so I can teach you how to write, darling." And I turned around and saw my grandpa at his old desk. "I'll let you see my special pen."

"Grandpa Cliff?" I asked, but it couldn't be him because he was dead, unless it was his ghost. It had to be a ghost because he disappeared when I got over to his desk. I took another small bite from the devil's food cake and I saw him again, but this time arranging a bunch of his Peace roses in a vase at the table. He stopped arranging the roses, turned around and said, "They're your grandma's favorite rose, Fern." Then he disappeared.

It seemed to me that every bite of the devil's food cake brought not his ghost, but a very intense memory of him.

"Hi there, Fern. What are you up to?" Grandma Vicky asked.

"Nothing, grandma," I said, "Can I have another piece of cake?" She smiled her lovely old lady's smile, each pearly tooth perfectly squared. She then said, "I would love to darling, but I only made enough for single servings."

"Will you ever make the devil's food cake again, grandma?" I asked her, and she scrunched her eyes up as if she was thinking hard. "Maybe. Someday."

Family asked for the recipes, begged for them - especially for that decadent devil's food cake. She told them that they could find similar recipes in the older editions of The Joy of Cooking, but the secret ingredients were meant to be secret. I spent 20 years trying to figure out grandma's secret ingredient in that cake. I made several dozens devil's food cakes in my lifetime and none of them compared to the one that grandma made, although I created one version that was featured on the Martha Stewart Show. No matter how often I or anyone else asked Grandma Vicky for the recipe, she always gave her coy little smile and said, "Oh, I'll never tell." I think she took pity on me because she grabbed my chin and said, "I'll teach you how to bake the devil's food cake because I know you would appreciate it."

"Apercy-kate, grandma?" I asked, and she laughed at my inability to say the word.

"Appreciate, Fern," she pronounced the word monosyllabically. "It means you like something, and you respect that thing." She bent down on rickety knees, breathing hard as she squatted, to see me at eye level. "Appreciate is something that I saw when you were eating that cake. You didn't simply gobble it down like some soulless McDonald's cheeseburger, but enjoyed every part of it - you allowed grandpa's favorite meal to enchant your senses. That's why I'm going to teach you how to cook because you're a connoisseur."

"A what, grandma?" I asked.

"A connoisseur," she said, "is a type of person who knows the best of foods." I tried to pronounce the word, but it sounded more like Conny Sore. Then grandma leaned into me a bit in that secretive way and asked me, "I got some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Want some? I also got a special present for you."

What kind of response do you expect from an 8-year-old girl? Obviously, I said yes.

We ate those cookies with tall glasses of cold milk outside on the patio, the Sonoma sunset shining through grandpa's Peace roses. Cattle and sheep grazed at the nearby ranch.

"That's a pretty ranch, grandma," I said. I thumbed my grandma's present in my hands: a blank diary.

"Yes, it's a beautiful ranch," she said. "And ranching is a beautiful life too. First time I saw your grandpa, I saw him galloping on a horse at his dad's ranch. He was so handsome." Her eyes watered as she stared at ewes grazing.

"Grandma, what do I write in here?" I asked her.

"Everything special in your heart and mind. Say hello and then introduce yourself, of course. You know, I've had a diary as long as I could remember."

"Can I use grandpa's pen for this?" I asked, and grandma made a little tittering sound, an "mmm" sound as she rolled up her eyes.

"Your mom's in charge of the pen until you're older. Grandpa only used it for the most special things he needed to write. But one day, when you're older. Use a regular pen for your diary. For now at least."

I looked at the smooth creamy page of the book with soft horizontal lines dashing across the page, and then I wrote, "Hi, my name is Fern..." I then stopped, not knowing what else to write, and dunked my cookie into my milk, just like grandma, and ate it.

"When can you teach me the devil's food cake, grandma?" I asked her.

"It's already begun, and the first fundamental rule is this: Always follow a recipe when you first get it. Always. Every other old lady has a secret recipe that's dear to her heart, and before you tinker with the recipe you got to follow it exactly for the first time."

Grandma then stood up and asked, "Want to see my diary?"

"Yeah, grandma." And we went to her room. She opened her closet and revealed a safe. She squatted, grunting loudly. She dialed the numbers and opened the safe. "Here it is," she said, holding the book. It was so ornate, and so beautiful - too beautiful to entrust in the arms of a young kid, but then she asked me, "Do you want to hold it? You could, if you promise not to open the book."

"Yeah, grandma." I held the book. It was deep purple and with gold patterns on it with a title so intricate that I couldn't make anything of it.

"My great-great-aunt Emily bequeathed it to me. She was like us - great cooks and fine eaters. She knew everything about good food. It's a special book because it's only passed down to special people like an inheritance."

"What's that, grandma?"

"An inheritance is like what grandpa Cliff gave you, the pen and necklace."

"Oh," I said in the terse and childish way.

"I've been thinking about my own mortality lately. It's time to hand this book to someone else special and here you are, baby girl."

I wanted to open the book, but I couldn't because grandma Vicky made me promise. I also wanted to trace the patterns on the book with my hands, but what if I rubbed off the gold? In the center of the book was a circle - no, a snake biting its own tail. Just like my necklace.

"That's called the Ouroboros," grandma said, "and it's the symbol for life."

"It's like my necklace, grandma."

"Yes, they bare a semblance, don't they?" She said, and then took out her own necklace, which was tucked under her blouse.

"Grandma!" I exclaimed, "We got the same necklace."

"Yes we do, because we're special people, Fern."

"Grandma," I asked her, "what's in the book?"

"Recipes, written by everyone who owned that book. I have a few of my recipes in there and stories of my life too"

She then locked the book inside the safe and said, "That's your inheritance. And you'll only get that book once I'm dead."

"Don't say that grandma," I said, "I don't want you to die."

"I'll have to die, darling. It's the cycle of life, and you'll learn about that through living on the ranch, and eating what we raise. Food is a real connection, dear, and it's passion even if it's as simple as eating cookies on the patio."

I spent every school vacation with Grandma Vicky at the Sonoma ranch, where I raised a small garden of sunflowers and purple coneflowers. In my garden, I hid under the heads of sunflowers and pretended to be Alice in Wonderland while I wrote in my new diary. I fed the spring lambs and watched mother sows nurse long rows of greedy little piglets. I harvested the heavy sunflower heads and grandma slaughtered the animals.

"It was a beautiful thing, a masterpiece of God," she said as she skinned a lamb in front of me. Her hands were so red, and so guilty. I cried somewhere in the corner, and she said, "Fern, that's life." I didn't want to hear any of it and when she called for me, I could only say, "How could you kill the baby lamb, grandma!"

"It's brutal, darling, I know. You're coming from a city life style where you can order your burgers ready made, your chicken ready cooked, and everything else prepackaged and clean. I felt the same thing when I was your age too, but I learned life only lives by killing and eating life."

"I'm only going to eat vegetables from now on!" I cried.

"Vegetables are also life also. For you to survive, it has to die." I covered my ears and closed my eyes. Her hand grabbed my shoulder and I tried not to look up at her face, but she held my chin. She had wiped off her hands, but they still smelled strongly of blood.

"Ever wondered why we say grace? To give thanks to the things we kill for our food. And to not forget our attachment to them. It's the cycle of life. The lamb eats the grass, we eat the lamb, we die and the grass eats us, and the lamb eats the grass again. Round and round it goes, just like the Ouroboros." Then grandma Vicky touched the snake of my necklace, and traced its round shape with her old fingers that smelled like blood. She then said, "That's why we say grace at the table. To give thanks for our lives and to recognize that one day - we will be food."

I rushed to grandma's walk-in refrigerator to cry. A lot of children normally went to their rooms to cry, but whenever I visited the Sonoma Ranch and I needed to cry, I went to the refrigerator because the chilliness of the room felt good. And I loved looking at the assorted foods that grandma kept.

Grandma made lamb chops for next night's dinner, and it smelled wonderful of garlic and rosemary, but I made myself a salad of wilted lettuce and a small bowl of white rice. I fed that lamb alfalfa with my own hands, kissed it and hugged it, and I heard it bleat for me when grandma slaughtered it. I vowed that I would never eat meat again.

"Are you sure you don't want any?" grandma asked. I couldn't even look at Grandma Vicky. All I could do was chew my lettuce with a righteous fury. I promised to be a vegetarian from there on, but oh - how lovely those lamb chops smelled. But I made my decision, and resolved to be stronger and to face temptation and triumph over it. However, the more I smelled those delicious lamb chops, the more my lettuce tasted like grass clippings. The rice stuck in my throat like glue.

"Are you sure you don't want any, Fern?" Grandma asked me.

"I feel full, grandma." I said, but my tummy growled loud enough to wake the dead all way back in San Jose. I gave up. I got up, went to the kitchen and got myself the biggest lamb chop and ate the hell out of that thing! Grandma laughed while petting my hair in the same way that I used to pet the lambs when they ate.

"It's alright to give in," she said, "and don't feel bad. Things have a way working out in the end. Well, take time eating but when you're done, it's off to bed with you. Tomorrow, I will be slaughtering a pig, and after that I will be teaching you how to make my favorites, blood sausage and bone soup, and how to render lard - especially leaf lard, which you can only get from the loins and kidneys."

I learned everything I know about cooking and living on grandma's Sonoma ranch. I learned about the cycle of life, of reproduction, and living happily. It was there where I met Barret during the spring vacation of my sophomore year at San Jose State University. Grandma hired him to help out on the ranch and the first time I saw him riding a steed, I knew that's how grandma felt when he saw Grandpa Cliff for the first time. I wanted to talk with Barret, but I was shy. Grandma and grandpa were convivial jolly folks as were my own mom and dad, but none of their filial gregariousness passed onto me. Grandma Vicky must have known that I was smitten because she seemed to always carefully arrange me at places where I couldn't avoid Barret until he took me out on my first date. Grandma always claimed that she never did such things, but on my wedding day I saw her smile. I could never tell what her little old lady's smile hid.

Grandma taught me everything except for one thing, the only thing that I wanted more than anything else to learn - the recipe of Grandpa Cliff's favorite devil's food cake. And, as sad as it sounds, I think my life as a connoisseur peaked when I had that cake. Cooking and eating seemed insipid to me, and although I married Barret, the man of my dreams, and owned my own restaurant, the Bonny Vie, which had been featured on magazines and TV for being the epitome of Sonoma cooking and living - I felt jaded. Grandma Vicky, who I was taking care of, told me that it was a slump.

"Part of being a passionate person is controlling your passion, dear," she said to me from her bed. We ate chicken noodle soup together from a recipe that could beat any canned version. Her hands were so shaky, and most of the soup fell on the bib of her napkin. She then said, "Just remember dear, even something so simple like a raisin can be a powerful experience if you give it a chance. Feel the texture of its skin on your tongue. Smell the aroma of the vineyard still lingering on its surface. And feel the skin break just before the burst of sweetness when you bite into it."

"Grandma." I put my spoon down. "Why won't you tell me the recipe for grandpa's favorite devil's food cake?"

"Oh, that old thing? Can't see what's the fuss."

"Because there was something magical about it."

"It's just a basic devil's food cake recipe."

"No, grandma. You did something else to it, and said that there's a secret ingredient. Why don't you tell it to me, please?"

"And I promised to let you know when I've died," she said, smiling. Her teeth were very white and perfectly squared because they were false. "And Happy Birthday, Fern."

"It's not my birthday yet, grandma..." I said while I wiped her chin. She was turning senile and kept saying, "Happy Birthday," to me.

"Honey, please, I'm not a baby," grandma said while grabbing the napkin. She held it for a moment. "What was I doing?" She said, and my heart broke. I took the napkin and wiped her chin, and I knew that I would never bother her with the recipe ever again.

Grandma died not too long after that. The day she died, I bought a huge bag of raisins and used every raisin recipe that I could find. I guess that's how I mourned, crying and cooking at the same time. Several of my tears fell into foods. I gave everything I made to my neighbors and friends. They said that the raisin cakes, cookies, breads, puddings and meat filling were wonderful, but they also said it produced an odd affect on them because after eating my treats, they felt a little heartbroken.

Grandma left me a letter with her lawyer. The creamy egg-colored page of the silky paper displayed grandma's tiny cursive letters in very straight lines. She even drew an ornate Ouroboros symbol at the top and bottom of the letter, which I still find impossible because her hand used to shake so badly. The flow of ink was familiar to me. I knew that she used a Waterman fountain pen. I began to read the letter after touching my Ouroboros necklace:

Fern, you have brightened my life since you entered it after your grandpa died. I've counted my blessings for having you as my grandchild. I have given you the most comprehensive education on cooking and living, but sometimes there are things that are best left unknown. If you want to finish your education, you know where to find my book. Open the safe without anyone else in your room. Happy Birthday, Fern.

Grandma never left me a combination number, but I knew what it would be: 09-25-19-81. The combination was my birth date, September 25, 1981. Grandma Vicky was feigning senility when she was in fact the clever fox. She was telling me the number to the safe all along. I went to open the safe and to learn the things that grandma didn't teach me.

At long last, I finally had the purple book in my hands once again. This time I could actually read it. It was so beautiful. I tried to make out the name of the book, but then I realized that it had no title but a passage and that it was in Latin:

et gratias agens fregit et dixit hoc est corpus meum pro vobis hoc facite in meam commemorationem.

I opened the book. The first page displayed an etch drawing of a man, much like Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man - except, the circle around the man was the Ouroboros. Patterns of lines dissected the man's body into pieces, each piece named just like a butcher's diagram for beef cuts. The lines and patterns reminded me of grandpa's old scary soap doll. Mom still had that doll in her room.

I could not understand the fine scripture of the first few pages because they were in another language. One entry read:

Hewe child al to pecys and medle it with barly-breed, Funges, leke & ayrenn. do þerto powdour fort safroun & pyneres with salt, make a crust in a trape, bake it wel þerinne, and serue it forth.

I recognized a few words and sometimes a whole sentence once in a while. When I tried to read out the passages, it reminded me of the Middle English of Canterbury's Tales. The book had many hand drawn pictures of native peoples, body parts, and symbols that looked like belonged in an alchemist's book. The purple book was ancient, something that belonged in a museum behind a glass case. I wondered how many people owned this book before me.

The language became less antiqued as I turned the pages. Each page seemed to show the development of English. Some entries had dates too. One passage dated on November 26, 1725... and further on, there was another one on October 3, 1869.

I spent several minutes reading the book until I had to put it down and close it. The room felt cold. The book - a cookbook and diary - was an evil thing because each recipe showed how to cook and prepare food using the human body.

There were so many recipes and tips on how to render human fat as lard, or to make a savory stew with the eyes. It contained a recipe on how to roast an aborted fetus with melted cheese made from mother's milk.

Then I noticed something more horrific than the contents in the book itself. The leather of the book had pores, human pores. The book was bound in human skin.

I felt sick, and this was my grandmother's book. She had to have a reason. And then I began to flip the pages looking for an explanation. There it was, the very last entry of the book:

"Hello darling, if you're reading this, this only means that you've read the book. I wasn't too sure I wanted to give you the book, but of all people in this world, only a few can understand. When I was a young girl too, I felt just like you darling, I know how horrified you must feel, but please Fern don't feel bad. Remember the lessons you learned about life at the ranch. Life sustains itself by feeding on itself. And, honey, there is another secret that I have to tell you. Remember grandpa's meal? Of all his favorite foods? He said that he wanted everyone to leave with a piece of himself in them. I never cremated grandpa because his wish was to be the meal. That's what made that dinner so special, and different. You know what I'm talking about. Your grandpa wanted everyone to be happy, and he always wanted to be with them forever..."

The skin under my eyes stung, and my skin began to crawl. I could not finish reading the rest. I had eaten my grandfather. I began to laugh, laugh maniacally. "Oh Jesus," I said, "oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, JESUS!" How could grandma do this to me, to everyone who ate her food at the funeral? I had to fix this problem. I had to destroy that evil book.

First I had to rip out every single page out and flush them in the toilet. No, what happened if the toilet backed up? A plumber would plunge it out. No, I had to burn them. Burn them and burn the ashes again, and stir holy water into them. But what about the leather binding? I had to bury it. Had to say a prayer. Had to because it was someone's skin at one time. Had to show the skin respect by burying it, bring a priest to consecrate the spot.

I ran downstairs to the backyard to the barbeque pit. I threw the book at the table and its evil pages fluttered. I lit a fire at the barbeque pit and turned to the recipe book. I was about to rip the pages out until I saw my grandma's recipe for the devil's food cake.

So much of my adult life had been trying to figure out how to recreate grandma's recipe. It looked so simple. It looked no different than any other devil's food cake recipe with one exception. Instead of butter, it used leaf lard... rendered from the fat around human loins and liver. That was grandma's secret ingredient. It was so deceptively simple, and in the back of my head I saw my grandma's coy little smile and heard her say, "Oh, I'll never tell." Could it be the same cake that I ate when I was a girl? I wanted to rip that book, knew that I had to so I could save my soul, but my hands worked against me. My hands couldn't rip grandma's book, at least not at that moment. I had to make the cake, but instead of human leaf lard, I would use the regular leaf lard rendered from pork. I would make one with leaf lard, and then one with butter.

But grandma's voice told me in my head the first important rule of cooking: Always follow the recipe exactly when you first get it. But I had to break the rules. I could never use humans as an ingredient.

I took the purple book to grandma's kitchen. I was lucky enough to find leaf lard and butter. I had to make two versions of the cake, using each. When I finished making both cakes, complete with frosting, I couldn't wait to try it. I tried the first one with pork leaf lard, allowed it to sit on my tongue and I closed my eyes. I prepared myself for the experience, the strong rush of good memories. The cake tasted good, but not any better than any other devil's food cake. Then I tried the cake made with the butter. It tasted something that I could have bought from the store.

I threw the cakes in the trash. I had to attempt to make the cake again, yes - I had to. I made it again... and again, but no matter what it didn't taste how it should. I made enough cakes to fill up the trashcan full of frosting and ants, and I began to cry. I knew I must have looked like a crazy person with crazy hair and flour all over my body, but I couldn't be crazy because crazy people don't know that they're crazy. I felt tired. I went to grandma's large walk-in refrigerator to cry.

When I went inside, I saw something that shouldn't have been there. Grandma Vicky's body lay on a butcher's slab. Her naked corpse gleamed white in the dark bluish hues of the refrigerator. I had never seen not so much an exposed forearm of my grandmother. The dark purple veins on her legs, the faded white stretch marks on her stomach and the nipples of her breasts burned bright in the cloudiness of the room. I set the book down and walked to my grandmother, even though I didn't want to. It seemed my body and hands worked against me, and I was helpless to their evil desire. My hands, my feet, my gut worked together to act on impulse. And then... my hands... they grabbed the cleaver next to my grandma... and then... my hands... they began to dissect grandma's body carefully. And... my hands... they became red. My hands did not care what I wanted, and it wanted to finish reading the very last piece of Grandma Vicky's words in the cookbook diary:

... and Fern, I want you to cook the funeral meal using my body. I did everything that I could to keep healthy, and I arranged some things by buying off people to put my body in the refrigerator. It is up to you Fern if you want to make the honorary meal with my body but this is my last request, and darling - I love you, angel. Lovingly yours, Grandma Vicky.

At long last, I had the secret ingredient. I rendered plenty of leaf lard from my grandma's loins and kidneys. And this time, I followed my grandmother's recipe. When the cake was done and frosted, it looked no different than the other cakes that I made. I think this is how damnation feels right before God overturns his right hand and sends you to the fiery barbeque pit of Hell. Again, my hands worked against me. My hands cut a slice of cake and set it on a plate. My hands then picked up the fork and then lifted a piece of devil's food. I closed my eyes as my hand put a piece of cake in my mouth.

That small morsel of cake melted in my mouth. Oh God, the texture and the taste were just fine. Then came the strong rush of memories, of times when grandma and I flew kites at the park, of times when we baked goodies in the kitchen. Then I smelled grandma's scent, which smelled like cookies. Everything in my life felt like it was meant to build up to that moment. Then, I heard my grandmother's voice say, "Hello, Fern."

I turned around and saw Grandma Vicky, or something that looked like Grandma Vicky.

"Hey, grandma," I said. "Are you a ghost?"

"No Fern, I'm the essence of everything you love." I began to cry tears of happiness. She went to me, and hugged me while making shushing sounds while cooing to me, "Don't cry, baby girl. Everything's all right... everything's all right."

"Grandma..." I sobbed.

"Yes, Fern?"

"I think I get it now. I understand... everything."

Grandma Vicky smiled. She looked so clean, and so angelic, but her smile would always be a little devilish. "I know you would understand in the end."

"And I have to love, protect, and write in that book, grandma..." I said.

"Yes, darling," grandma said back to me.

"But what do I write, Grandma?"

"Whatever that is in your heart, darling..." She said before she vanished.

I saw the world differently. I felt as though I experienced something religious, that I understood the meaning of life itself. There was something I understood more than anything else - I could never hurt that book. I had to preserve it, I had to keep it... and then, I had to find someone else to bequeath all my culinary knowledge and knowledge about life. I had to write in it... and no regular pen would do. I went to get my grandfather's pen, and in a fine print I wrote my very first entry: "Hello, my name is Fern."

So many things floated in my head and all of them sweet and tender like grandma's kisses. So many things in fact I didn't know where to start, but a voice in my head, Grandma Vicky's voice, told me what to do.

Make the honorary meal of grandma's most favorite foods - bone soup, blood sausage, and - of course - the Devil's Food Cake.

Updated: 11/14/09 3:03 AM Log in to comment! | Share this!