CAKE IS HALAL, FAT IS SINFUL Cake and Representation in Norway

Abstract

Cake is mandatory at celebrations in Norway and a very important female contribution. But due to its sweet and fatty ingredients the cake has become a metonym for obesity, and thus an important sign in the battle against the national weight problem. Playing a part in many different contexts, the cake is torn between different kinds of orthodoxy. In this article we describe layers of meaning by introducing three settings, which are very different in character yet able to link through our use of the cake as a common denominator: the cultural institution of coffee and cakes in a Norwegian rural village, cakes served and controlled in an educational institution for minority women and cakes as part of Friday get-togethers at an academic institution.