| Wedding Cake Evolution The wedding cake history discussed in this essay will be a summary of English wedding cakes and associated practices. The very first wedding cakes were more bread than cake and they resembled a thin loaf that looked "pie-like" rather than the traditional tiered cake of contemporary times. In many cultures, the cake was baked in shapes of birds or grain and used for a variety of celebrations, not exclusively limited to weddings. In early Roman times, a cake was broken over the bride's head, as a symbol of fruitfulness and good fortune. Guests then scrambled to collect pieces of the cake in hopes to secure good luck and good fortune for themselves. The breaking of the cake was seen as akin to breaking bread; a rite associated directly with the bride (Charsley 1992:102). In breaking cake, the bride was separating herself breaking off from her former life and entering a new life (Charsley 1992:107). This was a rite of passage for the bride with the bridegroom no where in sight (Charsley 1992:139). In Anglo Saxon times, guests actually brought little cakes to the wedding and piled them into a heap over which the wedding couple would kiss. In England, in the 17th century, plumb cakes as wedding cakes became fashionable (Charsley 1992:136). These were often coated with a white layer of sugar icing, whose colour was often judged as a sign of wealth. Because sugar was costly and difficult to procure and varied in quality, the whiter a wedding cake was, was a direct indicator of quality and expense used in making the cake. Because of the labour intensive and costly production of cakes at this time, they often came unadorned as no further decoration was needed. The pure white covering being symbolic of the virgin purity of the bride herself. When coloured cakes were introduced by bakers, they were quickly discarded in favour of the "traditional" white wedding cake as coloured icing meant an impurity with the bride.  | In the mid 1850s, wedding cakes began to grow in height (Charsley 1992:84). Bakers would place each successive layer directly upon the layer underneath it. In other words, the tiers were stacked one on top of another. The wedding cake as we know it today, with its successively smaller layers, supporting pillars, fancy frosting and festoons--had its origins some hundred years later, in a confection that commemorated the marriage of one of Queen Victoria's daughters in 1859. | Even then, a few refinements were missing: only the base tier was actually cake (the rest were pure sugar), and the layers were stacked like hat boxes. | It would take the wedding of Prince Leopold in 1882 before guests could enjoy an entirely "cake" wedding cake, and another 20 years before the tiers were separated by columns (usually disguised pieces of a broom handle). In the 1900s, bakers began to separate the tiers of the wedding cake and added pillars between the layers. These tiered cakes symbolized prosperity as those in the lower classes could not afford to commission the construction of a pillared tiered wedding cake. |  | Until the 1930s, most wedding cakes were round. It was not until the mid 1930s that novelty shapes and colours began to be introduced and accepted within the wedding banquet ceremony. Cutting The Cake  | According to Charsley, the ritual of cake-cutting and its associated progression of meanings reflects the changing role of women in marriage. In earlier times, cutting of the wedding cake was an endeavour undertaken solely by the bride for it was she who was leaving behing her other life to enter the new world of her husband's. In the 1930s, cutting of the cake became a joint effort on the part of the groom and bride; the first joint action on the part of the newlyweds. | In earlier times, when social standards insisted on the virginity of the bride, the act of cutting the cake and cutting into the virginal white outer shell of the cake symbolized cutting into the bride's very virginity. In contemporary times, with less emphasis placed on the importance of a bride's virginity, the joint cutting of the cake is seen as taking the plunge and severing the bride and groom's links with the past, as both parties enter a new world, a unifying act. There are stories that the practice of joint cake cutting emerged because in order for the icing to bear the weight of the upper tiers, it had to be sturdy. As a result, the bride needed the aid of her groom to help her cut through the hard shelled exterior of the cake (Charsley 1987:104). For many years, after the cake was cut, the top layer of the cake would be frozen and then consumed on the couple's first anniversary. However, this custom seems to be decreasing in popularity as cake tops are now consumed a month after the wedding date rather than a year afterwards. The Groom's Cake  | The origins of this cake date to the Middle Ages. Usually dark, solid, liquor soaked, it is much smaller than the wedding cake and is traditionally served at the reception. More often than not, the groom's cake is a fruit cake that is said to bring fertility to the newlyweds. The Groom's cake is usually the second cake at a wedding. In times past, the groom's cake was a gift from the bride to the groom. It was often believed that if a single woman put a piece of the groom's cake under her pillow, she would dream that night of the man she would marry. | Cake Distribution As is custom, pieces of cake are wrapped and given to the wedding guests to take back. Charsley (1992:123) argues that this distrubtion of cake is a symbolic token of sharing one's richness and prosperity with family and friends. By giving cake, one is not only engaging in the social act of sharing, but one is also sharing the blessings and happiness from the memorable day (Fieldhouse 1986:98). The Development of Meaning | Every cake represents past cultural creativity as the material for future creation. It appears as a single timeless thing within a taken for granted repertoire of a particular culture. But, wedding cakes are actually the product of a complex, contingent and continuing history (Charsley 1992:5) because the very values within a society are sculpted onto the face of the cake itself. |  | Food acquires meaning within a given system, as the foodstuff adopts and reflects the values of the society within which it is contextualized. People invent or modify practices to conform to symbolic ideas and they invest objects with meanings that are compatible with those practices. What may be relevant to one culture may be puzzling to another. All actions and meanings are validated against identifications within the culture and within the actors of a culture (Charsley 1987:108). There are a range of interpretations surrounding those customs and thus, each performance of a customary procedure has its own idiosyncracies, its own richness and its own complexities. References Simon Charsley. 1987. "Interpretation and Custom: The Case of the Wedding Cake". MAN. 22(1):93-110. Simon Charsley. 1992. Wedding Cakes and Cultural History. London: Routledge. Paul Fieldhouse. 1995. Food and Nutrition: Customs and Culture. New York: Chapman & Hall. |
