Do What to the Mayo?
May 5, 2009 Did you know that on this day in 1862, the Mexican army enjoyed an unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla?* Yep. It was such an auspicious occasion that they named that fateful 5th of May... [consulting clipboard] the...er...5th of May.
Wait - is that right? [searching through papers]
Oh, but they named it in Spanish - I see. That way, instead of sounding silly, it sounds all "exotic-like" to us Gringos.
Anyhoo, these days we Americans have put our own spin on Cinco de Mayo:
Namely, we consume copious amounts of alcohol at extended happy hours across the country. Though to be fair, some of us will be wearing sombreros at the time.
"Hey Jo, what'd you find down at the bakery?"
"Meh. Just a couple of Mexican clowns waving flags."
"What?!?"
"Oh."
(Anyone else think those "music notes" look like a pack of sky-diving sixes?)
I was going to suggest that something like a taco cake might be more appropriate today, but then I realized that's stereotyping. So instead, how about this?
Display it in a sink**, and all your Spanish-speaking friends will think you're hilarious. Or stupid. But then, they probably already think you're one of those anyway, so what have you got to lose?
Yenni, Matt J., & Kristin M., I hear happy hour starts at noon. Chop chop!
*Thank you, Wikipedia.
**Sink o' de Mayo? Get it?
Reader Comments (106)
Naming it Cinco de Mayo isn't any sillier than 'Fourth of July' is it? Especially since nothing important actually happened on July 4th. Voted on July 2nd, signed on August 2nd. July 4th? Um, date of printing. Wow.
The 4th of July, as many have already said, is not the name of the holiday. The official name is Independence Day but people like nicknames so 4th of July came about. I'm hoping that the people trying to be snarky don't live in America (like myself), otherwise, you just made yourself look a bit...silly.
Anyway, I'm working at a Mexican restaurant today. I bet there will be drunk "Ugly Americans" galore. But they won't look any worse than the clown morgue that is cake #2.
The mayo cake reminds me of my favorite holiday story.
We all know the story of the Titanic: giant boat, set sail for New York from England. She sank in a horrible tragedy in the middle of nowhere 15 April 1912.
Most people don't know the whole story however.
Early in 1912 Hellmann's Mayonnaise (an English company) revolutionized the condiment world by successfully preserving mayo in jars. The Titanic was carrying over ten thousand jars of Hellmann's mayo in her hold when she went down.
The Titanic's second port of call was to be Cozumel, Mexico. This was also the ultimate destination for the Hellmann's in her giant iron belly. It seems that mayo had never before been commercially available in Mexico and the populace was just going nuts over the stuff. When news hit Mexico of the Titanic's sinking in early May the nation went into mourning for the loss. The government of Mexico declared a national day of mourning, in fact, to be celebrated every year in remembrance of the event: Cinco de Mayo.
*snort* Sinko de Mayo. *snort*
(oh and on an o/t note in case you didn't hear: Dom DeLuise passed away last night)
lulz. mayo cake would be good for a bbq
Jen -
Good afternoon. The Happy 5 DE Mayo clown cake totally put me over the edge...hilarious.
After reading the comments over the last few days, and particularly after the "Epcot" debacle, I can only conclude that Cake Wrecks has become a victim of its own success and now attracts a number of "outsiders" who just don't GET IT!
Boy, I wish someone would make a point about how Independence Day is often referred to as "4 Of July". Because no one has done that. I feel this need to read 20 different "OMG Americans say Fourth of July!" comments and you people just aren't helping.
I'm pretty sure the skydiving sixes is more appropriate than "music notes" since those "music notes" are totally backwards. Stem and flag both go on the right, fyi. (Sorry, I'm a musician...) =)
Love the sink o the mayo. Yes, I got the joke straight away.:o)
Those clowns..eek. No wonder I hate clowns!
~Amy B.
It's...ah...a jar of mayo. What I always wanted. 0_o
Jen, are you sure you're not related to Mookie (www.dominic-deegan.com)? He loves puns just as much as you do. *g*
"Happy Drunk Day"--LOL is that for 5 de Mayo or someone's 21st birthday?
And oddly enough, those are the least scary clowns I've seen on a cake. Their ruffly trousers look...festive. Go figure!
To Benjamin:
Ugh... the thought of the jar of mayo cake actually having mayonnaise filling just turned my stomach.
To others:
Actually, Cinco de Mayo isn't a major holiday in Mexico; and certainly not Mexican Independence Day, that date is September 16th. Now THAT day is a huge party day for Mexicans :)
Today is my birthday and when I ordered cake, i made sure to say 'no writing' although I was tempted, in hopes that i would win (?) the CW lottery...
to "ctoan"... look on the calendar it is not named the 4th of July, it is named "Independence Day"
No such thing as an unlikely victory over the French! (No offense to any French readers intended, but I am English)
So we English-speaking folk look at that 2nd cake and read "Happy five de Mayo" but a Spanish-speaking person would look at it and read "Happy cinco de Mayo" so...it looks funny, but it's kinda not that funny, really. Call me a party-pooper.
The sink-o de Mayo cake, though? Priceless.
The music notes are also backwards, except for the one under the "a" in happy. That one is pointing two different directions.
**Sink o' de Mayo? Get it?
GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAN. :D
The 5 on the cake works--it just forgot one key element. It needs a superscript circle next to it. Spanish speakers don't always write out fifth anymore than English speakers do. They abbreviate it 5 superscript o--looks like five degrees.
Mexican Independence (and Independence Day for most or all of Central America) is September 15th.
I need to correct my own comment after a September 16th date was posted. The 16th is the official Mexican Independence Day, with the 15th being the day for other portions of Central America. The official declaration was made in Mexico on the 15th but the army didn't support it until the next day. Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras declared their independence on the 15th: Guatemala at least celebrates it on that day.
I had to enlarge the drunk cake to see that those are, in fact, champagne bottles and not olives. My first thought was, "Yeah....you'd have to be pretty drunk to eat a cake with olives on it" followed closely by the thought of what other odd surprises might be lurking UNDER the icing.
That cake also has a piece of paper beside it with the date 12/21/2008, so it might be some holiday that we have been neglecting to celebrate all these years.
Also...on the note beside the cake it looks like they repeatedly wrote "How I met" and then scratched it out. (Or is it "How I wet?")
For those who would like to partake in a non-wrecky Latin American cake, the tres leches cake is pretty awesome.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/tres-leche-cake-recipe/index.html?rsrc=search
http://www.texascooking.com/features/sept2002treslechescakerecipe.htm
And most US people think that Cinco de Mayo is all about Mexican Independence ... when they don't really celebrate it down there.
This is exactly why I like Miracle Whip! :p
way to completely ignore the fact that spanish is spoken by over 30 million people at home in this country, and that 15% of this "us" you mention are latinos, who don't think the concept of a mexican holiday — or the spanish language — is as weird and wacky as you do. as someone who lives in a state with almost as many latinos as gringos, i'm pretty shocked to learn that this is how the rest of the country views people, languages, and holidays that aren't lily-white.
OMG! SINK O' DE MAYO!!! NOTE TO SELF: NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LAUGHING OUT LOUD AT THE COMPUTER, SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING! DO YOU THINK ANYONE NOTICED???!
OMG... the mayo cake is awesome! I totally would stick that sucker in a sink and call it sinko de mayo.... except I'm not having a party and it's already 3:00... no time. Maybe I'll remember for next year. Probably not.
I would also like to know why there is a jar of mayonaise cake (aside from that you can put it in the sink and call it a Sink-o de Mayo cake). It's one of those cakes that is actually reasonably well executed, but you still wonder why anyone would want that. I demand more investigative journalism from Cake Wrecks!
Gad! Olives on a cake — I only hope they were candy.
And since I can't abide mayo, I'd not only put the Hellman's cake in the sink, I'd put it in the disposal!
Hmmm. Hellman. Is that Hellboy's father?
I need a Margarita ... with salt ...
As a Mexican(American) with family in and from Puebla, I suggest all those erroneously celebrating Mexico's Independence day today relinquish all alcoholic beverages to me. I will dispose of them in proper fashion.
It is rather strange that we celebrate someone else's Independence day at all. I still don't think there's a need to get in a such a tizzy about technicality. Bottoms up!
For me what's funniest is that in Mexico Cinco de Mayo is such a non-holiday. I mean, we don't celebrate it at all!! For us Mexicans in Mexico te Cinco de Mayo celebration with parades and booze and everything is as exotic as can be to your average gringo.
But I guess any excuse is fine to have some cake ;)
What the heck are those half-dozen greenish things lurking around the edges of that first cake? They look somewhat... menacing.
Okay, the Mayo joke -- priceless!
To all the commenters pointing out what a minor holiday Cinco de Mayo is for actual Mexicans - I chuckle in sympathy.
I'm Jewish. Chanukah is one of the tiniest, least significant holidays in our calendar, but it's been blown completely out of proportion in the US because it falls around Christmas time.
We just plain love to celebrate. You just have to shrug, chuckle, and hope your cake isn't too wrecky.
Why do the clowns have unnecessarily large thighs?
Are you sure those are notes? I mean, I'm only a professional musician but they don't look like anything ... [maxon attempts to play] mmmm
At a former job, we had a "Drinko de Mayo" party...named by the boss, who loved her margaritas!
Gah! Backwards eighth notes. So awful.
This comment is so far down God knows if anyone will ever read it!
I just wanted to say that I went to a resaurant and they were having a Cinco de Mayo party.....on the 4th.
Genius.
Obviously i took a picture!
http://obtuseruby.blogspot.com/2009/05/fail.html
xx
Oh, but they named it in Spanish - I see. That way, instead of sounding silly, it sounds all "exotic-like" to us Gringos.Like the first of July, you mean?
Normally this blog is really funny, but it's just not funny or clever to make fun of how other languages sound in English.
What's with those olives atop the Happy Drunk Day cake? Should be accompanied by some cheap white wine and garlic bread!
sink o' de mayo...I almost fell out of the chair!
Yesterday was my twin daughter's second birthday...but we went to the Mexican restaurant the night before to avoid the "american celebration" of cinco de mayo. But we actually had a VERY CUTE cupcake puppy cake...you know the long haired white ones...it was super cute, the only reason I bought it was because I was in shock it was actually cute and so I could take a picture of it.
I really don't think those are olives on the first cake. I think that they are bottles, but they just look like olives due to the angle of the picture...???
"ortowate" - I ortowate to get home before I start drinking!
I'm going to assume the comment about Cinco de Mayo/Fifth of May wasn't meant to sound racist or otherwise hurtful.
The school I work at had a Cinco de Mayo celebration. I'm going to see what I can get them to do come September 16th, since we have some students from Mexican families. Heck, we have students from almost every country in Central America, maybe it should be like a 2 or 3-day celebration.
Aw, I loves the Mayo jar Cake! :)
Love your blog! And as a music teacher, the one with the music notes...well, the notes are all backwards. That's why they look like skydiving 6's!
I suppose you think "The 4th of July" would sound less "silly" as "Cuatro de Julio"?
Anyone who is complaining that Jen is making a racist statement with her comment about Gringos (if you can't see the humor and understand that she's making fun of the "gringos" and not the holiday or Mexicans, etc.) really needs to lighten up or stop reading her blog. If you guys annoy her again she may stop posting altogether and I need my "Cake Wrecks' fix every day.
SO STOP TRYING TO TICK OFF JEN!
Hellmann's?....never heard of it, must be an east coast cake. Now, if it only said Best Foods...
wv: unnic - That mayo cake is the most unnic I've ever seen.
Those clowns have no idea what they are doing. They're singing their skydiving music notes backwards!
(trust the musician, 8th notes go the other way).