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Bach substitute

Kate Chisholm

Wednesday, 23rd January 2008

Janis (BBC Radio 2); Have Your Cake (BBC Radio 4)

I doubt, though, whether Joplin would ever have attained that peak of feminine accomplishment, cake-making. I say ‘feminine’ because I have yet to discover a male chef willing to advertise a love of home baking, as if it’s a lesser accomplishment, too sweet and self-indulgent to be a masculine calling. And yet cake-making is not just a domestic skill: it involves a scientific understanding of the process that takes place when you mix eggs, butter, flour and sugar and bake them in a hot oven; a physical effort (try mixing a Christmas cake without a processor); and a huge rush of adrenaline and goodwill as the resulting confection emerges from the oven, light, sweet and in its own way nourishing. Back in the 18th century, Elizabeth Carter, the leading translator from the Greek, was proud to be both a woman and a cake-maker, and was renowned just as much for her puddings as for her translation from the Stoic philosopher Epictetus.

I had high hopes, then, of the new Radio Four serial on Friday afternoons, Have Your Cake. But it was hugely disappointing. Feebly written, not well produced (as so often in radio drama these days, there was not enough differentiation either in the physical timbre of the voices or in the characterisation) and a terrible recipe for bitter chocolate cake made with mayonnaise rather than eggs. Ugh!