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Wedding Cake: A Slice of History

Wedding Cake: A Slice of History origins | carol wi lson Wedding Cake A Slice of History Since antiquity, weddings customarily have been celebrated with a special cake. Ancient Roman wedding ceremonies were finalized by breaking a cake of wheat or barley (mustaceum) over the bride’s head as a symbol of good fortune. The newly married couple then ate a few crumbs in a custom known as confarreatio—eating together. Afterwards, the wedding guests gathered up the crumbs as tokens of good luck. The Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius, in De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things),1 wrote that the breaking of the cake over the bride’s head mellowed into crumbling the sweet wheat cakes over her head. After all the cakes were used up, the guests were supplied with handfuls of confetto, a sweet mixture of nuts, dried fruit, and honeyed almonds. These sweetmeats were an important part of the wedding banquet and continued to be so for hundreds of years. Chronicles of the period record that in 1487 over two hundred and sixty pounds of “confetti” were consumed at the banquet following the wedding of Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso d’Este, son of Ercole i, Duke of Ferrara. Sweetmeats were showered over the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture University of California Press

Wedding Cake: A Slice of History

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Publisher
University of California Press
Copyright
Copyright © by the University of California Press
ISSN
1529-3262
eISSN
1533-8622
DOI
10.1525/gfc.2005.5.2.69
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

origins | carol wi lson Wedding Cake A Slice of History Since antiquity, weddings customarily have been celebrated with a special cake. Ancient Roman wedding ceremonies were finalized by breaking a cake of wheat or barley (mustaceum) over the bride’s head as a symbol of good fortune. The newly married couple then ate a few crumbs in a custom known as confarreatio—eating together. Afterwards, the wedding guests gathered up the crumbs as tokens of good luck. The Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius, in De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things),1 wrote that the breaking of the cake over the bride’s head mellowed into crumbling the sweet wheat cakes over her head. After all the cakes were used up, the guests were supplied with handfuls of confetto, a sweet mixture of nuts, dried fruit, and honeyed almonds. These sweetmeats were an important part of the wedding banquet and continued to be so for hundreds of years. Chronicles of the period record that in 1487 over two hundred and sixty pounds of “confetti” were consumed at the banquet following the wedding of Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso d’Este, son of Ercole i, Duke of Ferrara. Sweetmeats were showered over the

Journal

Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture – University of California Press

Published: Apr 1, 2005

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