I dunno how they make it in other countries, but I can confirm that a well-made German Baumkuchen, coated with chocolate to keep the dough from drying out, is simply delicious. It even got so popular in Japan that they have it in most supermarkets (baumukuhen / バウムクーヘン).
Opposite experience. The versions I've tasted were not dry (unless left out for too long), had a sort of melt-in-your-mouth texture, was sweet, had a specific taste that's hard to name (eggnog?).
They are not dry if they are made properly and eaten straight away. The stuff we can get in the stores is of variable quality (or at least variable storage conditions).
That said, it’s popular cuisine, from regions that were historically not that wealthy. It’s a bit rustic, but there is some beauty in its simplicity.
It’s not a very good point. Everything was from somewhere else at some point. It resonated in some places and got integrated into local traditions, it’s all there is to it. Yes, there are some things that are spread throughout Europe. They can still be part of local customs.
You're right that people borrow all the time. Cultural exchange is normal. What I charitably suspect the parent was alluding to was the French (though, of course, not exclusively French) tendency to saddle so much of what they've received with French roots. If it weren't for the revolution, we might learn that Jesus himself was a Frenchman!
This cake is really funny to me because almost every central european country has a variety of this cake, having unclear roots going back somewhere to middle age germany and "around", and people in the comments always get super nationalistic and angry about this being cake from country X and not from a country of X
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 8.1 ms ] thread> Several national variants of spit cakes: Spettekaka, Trdelník, Prügelkrapfen, Baumstriezel, Kürtőskalács, Šakotis, Baumkuchen, Kürtősfánk
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Spetteka...
That said, it’s popular cuisine, from regions that were historically not that wealthy. It’s a bit rustic, but there is some beauty in its simplicity.
But there's not really a magic taste, it's just a fun tradition.