Why Wait for Wedding Cake?
by Gary Allen
Having sat through many a wedding ceremony, with hunger distracting me from the more dignified proceedings upfront, I used to ask myself why do we have to wait for cake until after the ceremony? A bit of cake would make the long service much more palatable, wouldn’t it?
The sharp (and implicitly condescending) reply is “it’s simply not done.” That’s neither a simple nor acceptable answer, since all it does is suggest another question: “Why the hell not?” The answer to that question is both curious and obvious, once you get around to asking it.
Of course, you first have to ask yourself: “What is a wedding?” Reduced to its simplest terms, a wedding is the signing of a contract between two families, a contract that unites them, their properties and — most importantly: their blood — that is, their genetic destinies. Almost everything in the ceremony and the ritualized party that follows is about proving that all parties to that contract (but especially the bride’s side) are living up to their side of the bargain. This is done symbolically in many ways, but we’ll just look at one: the Wedding Cake.
Wedding cakes were not always like the ones we see today. The Romans used to break flat breads over the new couple’s heads because wheat stood for fertility. Medieval “cakes” — descended from those simple Roman breads — were flat and dark, dense with fruits, nuts, and sweet spices like cinnamon and mace. They were also meant to convey the idea that the union should be “fruitful.” By the seventeenth century, yeast-risen dough (more like a sweetened, enriched bread) was made into “great cakes,” often adding almonds to the sweet spices and dried fruits...CONTINUE...
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