On October 21, 1965, the San Bernardino Sun ran a recipe for what it described as a “moist luscious piece of chocolate cake.” The newspaper promised a dinner-party crowd pleaser, yet added conspiratorially, “your guests will not guess your secret until you are ready to reveal it to them.” In this case, the secret was “crisp, crunchy sauerkraut.” Home bakers have always reveled in a secret ingredient—the weirder the better. When The Washington Post ran a similar recipe years later, it dubbed its chocolate sauerkraut confection “Don’t Ask Cake” because…
