Many food and fashion trends have originated in Japan, but I’ll be interested to see if this one takes off in North America. Apparently people are beginning to celebrate their birthdays there with meat cakes.

Yep. Those are cakes made out of meat.

I’ve mentioned before that we used to make ground beef cakes for our dogs on their birthday when I was growing up. But this is full on carnivore cake for adults.

Image source

Yummy Bday at Yakiniku

These cake-shaped servings of layered meats are a trend being enjoyed in yakiniku restaurants where diners can grill their own meats.

The cakes help celebrate a birthday and can be shaped to look like a gift with sparkler, flower, or bow decorations.

Image source

In an approach that might remind North Americans of fondue restaurants, the diners are encouraged to select pieces of the raw meat and and grill them at the table. Of course, you then have to take a picture and post it on Instagram to really be part of the trend.

The Daily Meal predicts this phenomenon will take off shortly here in yakinuku restaurants or Korean barbecues. Yakinuku restaurants, by the way, serve diners bite-sized meats and offal to grill at their own table.

Amy Sedaris has also popularized meat cakes. The promotion for her new series, At Home with Amy Sedaris, features a four-tiered deli meat cake with meat-molded mushrooms. But she’s apparently been into this kind of cake for years (judging by a photo in a 2008 blog I found when searching “Amy Sedaris” + “meat cake” — not something I ever anticipated googling).

Image source

My Cake Hierarchy

Having worked with someone who didn’t eat sugar and ordered a paleo cake for the office, I will admit I was uninformed enough to worry she was going to be sharing a meat cake. This was a person who made beef jerky in the office oven after all. Happily, though, paleo just meant no wheat…but the cake could still be frosted and was just as tasty as my choice of cake.

So, I’m going to go first with traditional cakes as I’ve featured in #yummybday. Then, some of the alternatives I’ve blogged about, or I could settle for a paleo cake. But the meat cake is going to be number 4 on my list. Now, if there were a pasta cake…that would be something I would be willing to try.