As I try to remember my feelings about Black Cake a week after finishing it, I'm trying to learn more about the titular dessert. It's a Caribbean evolution of plum (or figgy?!?) pudding, brought to the island by its colonizers and soaked in rum all year, with the fruits merged together, less distinct and less heavy than the UK versions.

As one character describes it,

...some foods are born, bred, and developed within a particular geographic area or food culture. Others are imported, and yes, they find their places in new cultures over time, but they wouldn't be there in the first place without long-distance travel, without commercial exchanges and, in many cases, a history of exploitation. ... some foods that are taken for granted in many products and recipes in Europe, for example, are produced in other countries, where in past centuries, their trade depended on forced labor or very low-cost labor. Cane sugar, for example.

The cake is a through-line in this multigenerational story of family members lost and found. There's even a secret baked into a black cake, left by motherless mother Eleanor for her estranged adult children, Byron and Benny.

Byron is a Neil deGrasse Tyson, except with the ocean instead of the stars. Benny. who has a secret of her own, is adrift. I can't think of what else to say that won't be a spoiler, but I will add that in addition to "forced/low-cost labor," one might consider the role of rape in assimilation and foodways.

Many of my reads are lighter and quicker than this one was, but reflecting on the deeper messages of the novel as I write this review, I'm feeling more strongly about my recommendation. 4.5/5!