Let them eat cake!

I have reached that time in life when the offspring of old friends start to find their way in the world, meet partners and settle down. Yesterday we attended a beautiful church wedding followed by a decadent reception at a picturesque venue. Everything went swimmingly with everyone wearing their best bib and tucker, the bride and groom clearly in love, the food being delicious (including my special vegetarian meal) and the speeches hitting the right notes. It was a fairly traditional affair with the symbolic cutting of the cake at the end of the meal.

At least this groom did not hit his bride over the head with a loaf of barley bread as the Romans did! Nor did the couple have to stand on tip-toe over a pile of buns and attempt a kiss without bringing them toppling down like a stack of jenga bricks!

Food, and particularly cake, has played a big part in wedding celebrations around the world. For instance, in Canada they would hide a nutmeg inside the cake and the person who found it would be next in line for being wed (possibly less of a scrum than trying to catch the bride's bouquet). In Brazil they give cake as favours to guests; we were given iced biscuit dresses and waistcoats as favours.

At yesterday's wedding the Best Man said it had been a very emotional wedding - "even the cake was in tiers!" Haha! In the UK it has been traditional, since Victorian times, to have a tiered icing covered fruit cake. Fruit, nuts and marzipan represent fertility and good fortune. The smallest tier was often saved for the christening of the couple's firstborn (in my case it was eaten the following Christmas which was a good thing as a baby didn't follow for 9 years and the cake would have been mouldy by then!) 

In Ireland, as well as the fruit/irish whisky cake, the couple are served mead, a honey wine beverage, believed to bring virility and fertility. In times past they would have been given a supply of mead to drink until the first moon of marriage and that is, allegedly, where the phrase "honeymoon" comes from.

Nowadays people often have other cakes in their tiers such as sponge, chocolate or red velvet as many people do not like dried fruit. The ritual of the bride and groom smearing each others faces in frosting is not one I like to see; never mind that they've just spent a fortune on hair, clothes, makeup and photos to capture their perfection, what a waste of cake!! 

Whatever the flavour, it's good to see some traditions continue and cake, and hopefully marriage itself, will last until infinity and beyond!