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 material 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.
Author(s): Simon R. Charsley
Series: Routledge Revivals
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 173
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Original Title
Original Copyright
Contents
List of illustrations
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Part I Preliminaries
1 The British wedding cake in the late twentieth century
Cakes in weddings
Their form and ranges of variation
The changing trade in the 1980s
Does a wedding cake mean anything?
2 How distinctive is the British cake?
Europe
America
Australia
Outwith the west
Themes
3 Cultural creation: myth, history and language
The Victorian myth of origin
Cultural history and its problems
Recipes as evidence
'Wedding cake' and 'bride cake': terms in language
4 When the wedding cake was not yet and might never have been
Feasts, foods and subtleties
Cake, great cakes and marriage rites
Alternatives and their persistence
Part II The making of the British wedding cake
5 Great cakes, plum(b) cakes and bride cakes
Great cakes for weddings
From great cakes to plum(b) cakes
The bride cake
Cakes for weddings and other festivities
6 Confectionery and icing
Sugarpaste and the beginnings of confectionery
Marchpanes
The development of icing
Double icing
Marzipan
Decoration and colour
Piping: 'a new art form'
7 The rise of the Victorian cake and its successors
Pièces montées
Royal weddings and the high rising cake
The trade and the three-tier standard
Separating the tiers
Colour, top pieces and other ornamentation
Part III Users, uses and meanings
8 Uses and their evolution
Cake-breaking
Dreaming and divination
Display
Cutting the cake
Keeping it for the christening
Conclusion: uses and forms
9 Meanings and interpretation
10 Towards a theory of cultural change?
Objects, custom and meanings
Phenomena of cultural change
Postscript
Notes
Bibliography
Index
