Rather than majoring in frivolities, women should be educated in useful subjects and 'be furnished with a stock of ideas, and principles, and qualifications, and habits, ready to be applied and appropriated…' - Hannah More
As one who appreciated the tragic side of eating, it seemed to him that anything other than fruit for dessert implied a reprehensible frivolity, and cakes in particular ended up annihilating the flavour of quiet sadness that must be allowed to linger at the end of a great culinary performance.