Cake in American society is frequently associated with various rites of passage. Whether you are turning 7 or 70, nothing says Congratulations like eggs, flour, butter, and sugar. Of course, some cakes are overlooked, considered symbols of gratuitous American excess rather than conveying the meaning  and significance of their more-timely cousins. To all of the cakes out there which are scarfed down instead of celebrated, this post’s for you.

Oh pre-wedding wedding cake, a cake by any other name would taste as delicious. Yet you are cursed to forever live in the shadows of a rehearsal dinner, consumed and discarded, lost and forgotten.  Do not feel ashamed of your plight. You were born as a pre-wedding wedding cake, never given the opportunity to show the world how magical you could make someone’s special moment. You are the poor, inner-city student of the cake world, but were never given the affirmative action frosting of All-American aspirations to live the dream. But never forget, oh disenfranchised cakes of the world, that the more delicious you are, the more likely your cakeson or cakedaugher will be served at an event worthy of respect and admiration of which you can be proud. Stay strong, oh cakes one and all, stay stong. Your consumption is not in vain.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. Waffles are delicious. The perfect balance of form and function, they maximize surface area of pancake-like exterior while providing convinient syrup-carring pouches for a quick waffle on the go. For millenia, the waffle has remained as it has always been, in its flawless glory perhaps the closest man has ever been to Steve the Baker. Until now.

I give you the stroopwafel. I ask first and foremost that you ignore the fact that it rhymes with four of Hitler’s top ten things to do on the weekends, and embrace it for what it is. Friends, it is not just a waffle.  It is two waffles. And between those waffles–a sweet jell which can only be described as so delicious, the Dutch have started eating stroopwafel instead of raw herring as their favorite national pasttime. Truly the snack that kids love and moms approve, may the stoopwaffle bring forth a new wave of prosperity onto the people of the Netherlands for millenia to come.

You can’t judge a book by its cover. Likewise, just because the meal set down in front of you looks like the chef ate grass clippings all morning, then regurgitated them onto your plate, doesn’t mean your food won’t be delicious. Even if you are told that the food on your plate has the capacity to block ATP production and cripple your entire nervous system in seconds, it might still be delicious. Indeed, beneath the sickening appearance and deadly chemical compounds may lie a jewel of a meal.

Such was the case with the pescado con la crema de chaya that I ordered in Progreso. A veritable debris heap, the food for which I had so trustingly agreed to pay 115 pesos initially looked to be a disappointment. But when I took my first bite, I fell in love. It was not the sweet tomatoes and shrimp of northern Campeche. It was not the thick, rich mole sauce of the inland. It was not the fiery jabañero from further up the coast. It was none of these things; and yet, it was all of them.

Uncooked, chaya leaves are poisonous. They release cyanide, which causes death. Death is a bad thing and not the primary goal when sampling the native fare of the Yucatán peninsula. Only in a country whose economy is largely dependent on cocaine and heroin could cyanide become a staple. But once cooked, the leaves become soft, more nutrient rich than spinach, and non-toxic. “Edible,” my friends, is a gross understatement. “Succulent” does not begin to do it justice. “Godly” is a good start.

And so I found my fate inextricably linked to that of the chaya leaves in front of me. Mankind had tamed the cyanide-laced deliciousness, which in turn, tamed me.