The ratio of historical context to baking content in this extra-long episode is approximately 75/25 because we feel that's appropriate! Angel food cake is so much more than a dry ring of fatless sponge found on grocery store shelves across the United States, it's a distillation of the historical role of "housewife" and how it evolved post-Industrial Revolution. Fiona tells Roxie about how domestic labor roles have evolved in Europe and the United States over the last 800 years and how that evolution relates to capitalism, racism, and gender. Plus, Roxie learns to stop worrying and love angel food cake.

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Sources:

More Work for Mother by Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Basic Books, 1983

The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks, Harper Horizon, 2023

The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, Oxford University Press, 2015

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/work-requirements-are-rooted-in-the-history-of-slavery/