Playing time: 10-15 mins (approx. 1 slice of congenial domesticity)

Parlor game ideal for Patrick’s festivities, or any other Irish apple cake-eating occasion. To be played internally.

1. Should it ever come to your attention that you are doing the following two things simultaneously:
   

   
   a) Eating Irish apple cake; and
   b) Breathing Irish air (or sharing the local oxygen supply with a real-life Irish apple cake baker), proceed to Step 2 below.
   
   If these two conditions are not present, stop game here and return to other pursuits.
   
   

2. Should you bore of the conversation and find yourself estimating the level of damage you could do with just that little pastry fork, why not use the time to instead:
   
   

   a) Ask yourself whether your host is using the term Irish apple cake as shorthand for something else. It’s certainly a similar Irish dessert at hand, but they probably mean ‘Irish apple tart’. But the again, maybe that’s not even accurate.
   
   Is it a true, thoroughbred tart you’re devouring? Or could it perhaps in fact be an example of the even more vague ‘Irish apple pie’?… Could it all be just a sham?
   
   It’s probably a tart.
   
   

3. Carry out initial inspection of what you have now established with reasonable confidence to be an Irish apple tart.
   

   
   Upon completion, ask yourself whether said Irish dessert stands up to observation as pertaining to taxonomic accreditation. You may well decide that there is a distinct possibility that it in fact does not even fulfill the criteria for being classed as a ‘tart’, but rather would be more accurately described by another pastry epithet.
   
   But how to be sure?
   
   

4. Carry out further reconnaissance.

   
   Eye, fondle and generally gauge your slice of Irish dessert and, if you can, what is left of the mother cake from whence it has been cut. Make sure to continue to appear congenial, and avoid suspicious eyes…Oops! Egad! D’oh! – you’ve alerted them!…Plates, yes, comment something about my what pretty plates.
   
   

5. Indulge your host’s gracious, chipped-toothed smile, thank yous and explanation as to how they came to have such pretty, almost entirely unchipped, plates.
   
   

   Take another couple of bites as you do so, being careful not to choke on your impeccable taste, or accidentally inhale your exceptional breeding.
   
   …Yes, it seems to be…Mmm, Irish apple cake, but also hmmm…’Irish apple cake’. I think we’re getting somewhere now.
   
   

6. Quickly return to your reccy mission.

   
   With the aid of exquisite social grace and mouthfuls of Irish apple cake, you have successfully emitted a temporary smokescreen. But it won’t be long until you’re again asked to donate additional verbal tripe to proceedings, so it’s best to work quickly.
   
   

7. Continue peering into your Irish dessert, working smoothly and as casual coy as your now dancing pacemaker will allow.

   
   …Yes, I see. Hmmmm. Interesting. The ‘Irish apple cake’ may indeed seem to be made of nice and crumbly shortcrust pastry, but observe any top crust that might be present. Or perhaps you spy a pretty grate perched atop the filling – with the caged little apples peeping out from below?
   
   Hark! Can you see it now!? Eureka!
   
   

8. Smugly congratulate yourself. You’ve figured it out, and through ergonomic use of this parlor game once again received confirmation as to how right you are and how unfathomably wrong are others.

   
   You are the true winner of the much of a muchness, mute finesse debate on the Irish dessert that ought, would, and should always rightly be termed a ‘tart’ but which is quite clearly in fact a ‘pie’, ‘cake’, ‘crumble’, et cetera.
   
   For further self-congratulatory fodder furtively take out your smartphone or adjourn to adjacent computer room and head over to the Irish Food Traditions section in order to read our piece on the bland Cake, Pie, and Tart debate set to lower the tone at your next social gathering.
   
   Or perhaps your hunger for finicky foodism has been whetted and you swiftly head over to our Irish Dishes section, urgently seeking out the recipe for true ‘Irish apple cake’.
   
   

9. Follow the rigmarole of what remains of the particular social occasion that has you eating Irish apple something and make sure to insert a subtle skip in your step as you leave the vicinity, safe in the knowledge that you’ve caught your host in the act.

   
   That sly conniver, thinking they could pull off such a stunt! As if you, of all astute connoisseurs, would not notice.