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Wedding Cakes and Cultural History

Wedding Cakes and Cultural History
by Simon R. Charsley
Published by Routledge
Publication date: June 1992
Dimensions (in inches): 8.50 x 5.48 x .57
ISBN: 0415026490
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Foreword  by William Woys Weaver
Preface
Introduction

Part. I. Preliminaries

  • 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?
  • How distinctive is the British cake?
    Europe
    America
    Australia
    Outwith the west
    Themes
  • 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
  • When the wedding cake was not yet and might never have been
    Feasts, food and subtleties
    Cake, great cakes and marriage rites
    Alternatives and their persistence

Part. II. The making of the British wedding cake

  • 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
  • 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'
  • The rise of the Victorian cake and its successors
    Pieces montees
    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

  • Uses and their evolution
    Cake-breaking
    Dreaming and divination
    Display
    Cutting the cake
    Keeping it for the christening
    Conclusion: uses and forms
  • Meanings and interpretation towards a theory of cultural change?
    Objects, custom and meanings
    Phenomena of cultural change

Postscript
Notes
Bibliography
Index

This index refers to the hardcover edition. - Click here to Order

Next: Wedding cake decorating by Elaine MacGregor

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