Wedding Cakes and Cultural History PDF
Preview Wedding Cakes and Cultural History
Routledge Revivals Wedding Cakes and Cultural History First published in 1992, Wedding Cakes and Cultural History is a unique contribution to the anthropology of food, tracing the fascinating history of wedding cakes, from late medieval feasts and rites, through the Victorian wedding breakfast and into the 1990s. Dr. Charsley maps the intricate creation of the wedding cake and explores its uses and meanings. He shows that the wedding cake provides a vivid illustration of the traditions and traditional values inherent in all foods and demonstrates the part that mate- rial culture plays in the process of change. Challenging in its ideas, yet approachable in style and subject matter, this book will be of great interest to students and teachers of anthropology, sociology and cultural studies. Wedding Cakes and Cultural History Simon R. Charsley Firstpublishedin1992 byRoutledge Thiseditionfirstpublishedin2022byRoutledge 4ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,Oxon,OX144RN andbyRoutledge 605ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017 RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness ©1992SimonR.Charsley Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedorutilisedin any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublishers. Publisher’sNote Thepublisherhasgonetogreatlengthstoensurethequalityofthisreprintbutpoints outthatsomeimperfectionsintheoriginalcopiesmaybeapparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondencefromthosetheyhavebeenunabletocontact. ALibraryofCongressrecordexistsunderISBN:0415026482 ISBN:978-1-032-34252-8(hbk) ISBN:978-1-003-32129-3(ebk) ISBN:978-1-032-34277-1(pbk) BookDOI10.4324/9781003321293 Wedding cakes and cultural history Simon R. Charsley London and New York First published in 1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1992 Simon R. Charsley Typeset by NWL Editorial Services Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham PLC, Chatham, Kent All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Charsley, S.R. Wedding cakes and cultural history / by Simon R. Charsley p. cm. 1. Wedding cakes - Great Britain - History. 2. Wedding cakes - Great Britain - Social aspects. 3. Wedding cakes - History. 4. Wedding cakes - Social aspects. I. Title. GT2797.C44 1992 91-24278 392'.5 - dc20 CIP ISBN 0-415-02648-2 (hbk) 0-415-02649-0 (pbk) Contents List of illustrations vii Foreword William Woys Weaver viii Preface ix Introduction 1 Part I Preliminaries 1 The British wedding cake in the late twentieth century 11 Cakes in weddings 11 Their form and ranges of variation 13 The changing trade in the 1980s 14 Does a wedding cake mean anything? 17 2 How distinctive is the British cake? 20 Europe 20 America 22 Australia 24 Outwith the west 26 Themes 28 3 Cultural creation: myth, history and language 29 The Victorian myth of origin 29 Cultural history and its problems 31 Recipes as evidence 32 Wedding cake' and 'bride cake V terms in language 35 4 When the wedding cake was not yet and might never have been 37 Feasts, foods and subtleties 37 Cake, great cakes and marriage rites 41 Alternatives and their persistence 46 vi Contents Part II The making of the British wedding cake 5 Great cakes, plum(b) cakes and bride cakes 53 Great cakes for weddings 53 From great cakes to plum(b) cakes 54 The bride cake 56 Cakes for weddings and other festivities 60 6 Confectionery and icing 64 Sugarpaste and the beginnings of confectionery 64 Marchpanes 65 The development of icing 67 Double icing 70 Marzipan 72 Decoration and colour 74 Piping: (a new art form' 77 7 The rise of the Victorian cake and its successors 82 Pièces montées 82 Royal weddings and the high rising cake 83 The trade and the three-tier standard 87 Separating the tiers 89 Colour; top pieces and other ornamentation 92 Part III Users, uses and meanings 8 Uses and their evolution 101 Cake-breaking 101 Dreaming and divination 107 Display 111 Cutting the cake 112 Keeping it for the christening 117 Conclusion: uses and forms 119 9 Meanings and interpretation 121 10 Towards a theory of cultural change? 128 Objects, custom and meanings 129 Phenomena of cultural change 132 Postscript 141 Notes 143 Bibliography 151 Index 159 Illustrations Figure 1 Shewbread from the Geneva bible (1560) 45 Figure 2 Advertisements in The British Baker (1893) 80 Figure 3 ‘A Weddynge Breakfaste’, from Richard Doyle, Manners and Customs o ff Englyshe (1850) 113 Figure 4 Tableau Vivant’: from Punch (1881) 114
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