they made a dessert and they called it peace

 

This is possibly the best bit of nuclear kitsch ever. It’s a real cake, like what Escoffier would have been proud of, baked to commemorate the success of the first Bikini nuclear trials in 1946, in which many of the remaining ships of the Kriegsmarine were incinerated, along with a lot of innocent goats. The event – the cake, rather than the nukes – didn’t go down too well in some circles. 

The picture made the Washington Post's society page. It also made a lot of people indignant and unhappy...the Rev. Mr. Davies [pastor of a Unitarian church in Washington--ed.] thundered: "An utterly loathsome picture. If I spoke as I feel I would call it obscene.... How would it seem in Hiroshima or Nagasaki to know that Americans make cakes of angel-food puffs in the image of that terrible diabolical thing". . . . 

Time concluded mordantly: These were probably the harshest words ever spoken of a dessert. 

Full story at Chinamatters.

Comments

[Alex]

Mordant being the right word (as in mordre - to bite). Oddly enough, in the late 70s, some of the West German navy's clearance divers went to Bikini and recovered one of the Prinz Eugen's propellers, which they brought back to Germany and installed at the first world war sailors' memorial on the Baltic.

[ajay]

There's some good wreck diving at Bikini now the background radioactivity's fallen away. Don't eat locally-grown vegetables though.

[ajay]

Also, how long have you been looking for a story that would allow you to use that headline?

[Richard J]

I think it would make the perfect follow up to Chicken Marengo.