March 23, 2023 • 29 mins
Weddings are an ancient tradition, and over the millenia the various rituals associated with (theoretically) life-long partnership have evolved and changed. One ritual in particular became both prominent and controversial in the West: the act of newly-married couples smashing wedding cake into each other's faces. So where did it come from? Why does it happen, and what do its critics think the practice means?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous historians.
As we remarked earlier, our crew is on the road
right now. We wanted to share some classic episodes with you.
Shout out to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Also,
you're Noel, I've been. We've both been to weddings. As
(00:23):
a matter of fact, dude, both of us are going
to friends' weddings later this year. It's true. Friends do
occasionally get married, sometimes to each other. That's always tripping.
It happens, but it is an ancient tradition, as we know,
and oftentimes ancient traditions carry with them ritualistic behavior and
(00:44):
not necessarily like blood sacrifices, although you know, certainly, certainly
the wedding is in and of itself a sort of
psychological blood sacrifice. No weddings are great. Everyone should be
in love. I love that for all of you married
couples out there. But there are some weird wedding traditions,
some you may be, you know, intimately familiar with, like
(01:04):
the old throwing of the bouquet, and that weird one
with the garter. Never fully understood that one. We may
discuss some of those in this episode was specifically, I
think we've all sort of looked askance a bit at
that tradition of smashing cake into each other's faces at weddings. Yeah, man, Like, okay,
so full disclosure. I've officiated a number of weddings and
(01:29):
the cake thing stood out to both of us because again,
we actually Noel and I actually hang out on the
regular pretty often and we have these moments where one
of us says, you know, what's the deal with that?
And then I know, man, when we make eye contact
(01:50):
and we have like the silent nod. We want to
figure it out. So back in twenty seventeen, Noel and
Casey and now Max you're part of this, bro, we
asked ourselves, why do people smash cake on each other's
faces during weddings? Yeah? Why? Indeed, we're gonna find that
(02:14):
out together. Here it goes ridiculous. History is a production
of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show, Friends and neighbors, ladies
(02:59):
and gentlemen. And you know what that music means. I'm Ben,
I'm Nolan. Apparently it's a nice day for a white wedding. Yeah,
as we speak, given the just the raw numbers, odds
are that there are thousands of couples getting married today,
hundreds of thousands, even, it's very true. It is a
popular pastime. And of course we are joined by our
(03:24):
super producer, Casey Pegram here and today we are looking
at one of the world's most universal traditions, the tradition
of matrimony. I like to call it nuptials. Nuptials is
cool too, it just sounds cute. And we know whether
or not you have been married, or whether or not
(03:48):
you've actually been to a wedding. It's impossible not to
know a little bit about it because it's such a
fundamental part of so much fiction. It's in so many films,
not just rom comms, yeah, but definitely in rom coms. Definitely,
definitely big in romcoms. So everybody is aware on some
level of the basic idea that typically it's going to
(04:09):
be two people who decide that they're going to in
front of members of their society and in the eyes
of the law usually as well, and the Lord and
the Lord right, whatever lord that may be. Precisely, they're
going to be an official item till death do they part,
unless it's a shotgun wedding, unless it's a shotgun wedding,
(04:32):
in which case you're sort of out of luck. You
guy's got to kind of bite the bullet, or you
have to bite the bullet daddy's bullet. So at some
point you and I have looked into weird traditions before traditions,
I want to be fair, traditions that might seem unusual
to outsiders. We've looked into this sort of thing before tradition.
(04:56):
Do you know that you've seen The Fiddler on the Roof?
I have a long time ago all about tradition. In fact,
one of the most popular songs from it is the
song tradition, Oh really that goes like I just say,
was that an excerpt? Is that the whole thing? That
was just my my bit. That's really the only the
only lyric I remember, But there's a whole song around it.
You guys can check it out in your own time, Yes,
(05:17):
please do. And while you are checking things out, you
may also run into other strange traditions. We're familiar with
some wedding traditions like uh, tossing the garter belts? What's
that one about? Always that seems so ascay. It's like
the person who catches the garter belt traditionally is amongst
like the male folk or the grooms and they're gonna
(05:39):
get married next. But then and then the bouquet is
the female who's gonna get married next. Yeah, yeah, at
least traditionally, And I know there's some problematic gender norms
in there, but sometimes tradition has problems, right, Yeah, And
you know, these traditions range from the you know, innocuous,
to the bizarre, and the one we're talking about today
(06:01):
I find pretty intensely bizarre because at some point in
history it became a thing for the happy couple to
shove wedding cake into each other's face holes, to have
a miniature and intimate food fight in front of everybody
(06:21):
else at the wedding because other wedding members don't do
this a ritualistic force feeding. Yes, and we do know
that newly weds beforehand would feed the first slice of
wedding cake to one another and it was a symbol
of their commitment right to provide for one another. And
this comes from Rachel Sylvester, associate Real Weddings editor with
(06:44):
the Knot. However, says Sylvester, the symbolisms often lost and
it's been replaced increasingly now with this tradition that Noel
just described. There is a fantastic Dear Abbey letter from
June of twenty eleven, where Faithful writes into Abby and says,
Dear Abbe, I'm writing you about a disgusting, rude and
(07:07):
obscene habit the bride and groom shoving wedding cake into
each other's faces. How rude and insensitive to the person
he or she just promised to love, honor and cherish,
not to mention disrespectful? What do you think of this custom?
And dear Abbey has okay, so no mention words on
Faithful spart and Dear Abbey seems to agree, saying, Dear Faithful,
(07:29):
the customs should have been retired at least fifty years ago.
The significance of this quote unquote ritual is demeaning to women,
right because dear Abbey says, according to curious customs by
Tad Tuleja, the cake cutting at modern weddings is a
fourth step comedic ritual that sustains masculine prerogatives in the
very act of supposedly subverting them. So Abby goes on
(07:52):
in the first step of the comedy, the groom helps
direct the hand of the bride in a symbolic demonstration
of male control that was unnecessary in the days of
more tractable women. And what I love about this is
it really pushes home the kind of inherent misogyny in
(08:14):
This makes a little bit of a stretch to me,
but I'm going to go with it. I think it's interesting.
So the female, the bride, she accepts this gesture and
according to Abby, this serves as further proof of her submissiveness,
and then performing the second step of the ritual, which
seems to be a twist where she offers him the
first bite of cake, but then playfully in the third step,
(08:37):
she subverts this trope by shoving it in his face
playfully right. And then Abby goes on that this act
of revolt is performed in a childish fashion, and the
groom is able to endure it without losing face because
it ironically demonstrates his superiority. His bride is an imp
needing supervision, and the idea hears that the bride is
(09:00):
being infantilized to a degree. I would tend to describe
this argument as based in patriarchy, even more so than misogyny.
But they're both present there if you believe this, And
the idea here is almost it's depicted, at least in
this quotation, as a ritualistic theater of sorts, as a play,
(09:26):
almost and with clear beats to the story. And then
the bride has apologetically wiped clean the groom's face and
is now obedient to his dignified, somehow inherently wiser self.
So you have to wonder how far back does this go.
(09:46):
We know in ancient room the bride could expect to
conclude festivities by having a barley cake smashed upside her head.
So in this case, back in Rome, it was the
bride who got cakes mashed. Yeah, And then I found
this great Smithsonian article that the details some other early
(10:07):
cake traditions, and it says that in medieval England the
bride and groom would kiss each other on top of
a pile of buns, and this act was meant to
demonstrate and ensure even their prosperity in the years to come.
But there's another weird part about that one, Yeah, they're sure,
(10:28):
is the unmarried guests. A lot of these things seemed
to before the unmarried guests in general, with the garter
and the bouquet and the whole taking home a piece
of cake, because in this ritual the guests would sometimes
take a little piece as a souvenir of this cake
that they would tuck under their pillow like the tooth fairy,
(10:48):
despite the fact that they were very well aware of
all the things that happened to it. And as it
turns out, this particular recipe in these early British traditions
was something called bride's pie pye, which mixed something called coxcombs,
which I believe is the frill, the little hand looking
(11:09):
thing on top of a of a male chicken. Mixed
that with lamb testicles, sweetbreads, which if for my money,
I quite enjoy sweetbreads if they're prepared well, oysters which
are also good, and a lot of spices. And then
there was another version of this recipe that included boiled
calf's feet, and this did change in the sixteenth century. Oh,
(11:33):
I want to not forget another note about Rome. There
in ancient Rome, it's also argued that this tradition of
barley caking was which I've just made a verb. I
like it. Oh, thanks man. This tradition of barley caking
was also done to symbolize male dominance and to encourage fertility,
(11:53):
and this practice stayed with us today. When did things
change We can date it to around the mid sixteenth entry,
because sugar was becoming more plentiful and affordable in England. Yeah,
and sugar became a really important ingredient in cakes, not
only because it tastes way better than lamb's testicles, one
would assume, but also it symbolized the purity and virginity
(12:17):
of the bride to be and also it was a
serious status symbol, right Ben, Yeah, it was absolutely serious
status symbol because it goes back to the color of
it as well as the show of wealth and opulence
for the wedding party and the wedding goers. Look at
this tremendous cake. And even now we see this. I
(12:39):
believe it was during Princess Diana's wedding that the cake
was five feet tall and they had a stunt double
cake in case something happened to the first one. Yeah,
and wedding cakes are big business these days, is all
(13:00):
the you know, the wedding reality shows and the cooking
shows and cake Boss and all of the fondunt and
the different versions of these absurd cakes that you can
get in all kinds of shapes and sizes. They can
be you know, like a race car or a volcano
that spews fourth lava even or you know, something like
(13:23):
your your favorite sports car perhaps, or if you're, you know,
having a Star Wars wedding, it could be at a
moscale model of tattooing. And one person doubled down, right,
We read about a We read about one bride who
had a full sized replica of herself. Is the cake,
which to me is weird. It's a little vain maybe,
you know, it's very eat of my flesh. Typically you
(13:46):
have the tiny bride and groom as the topper of
the cake. But that's that's a real stretch to have
an entire cake that appears to be a facsimile of
just one member of the wedding party. Well, if both
the bride and her spouse are into it, then it's
their call. I would just personally feel kind of weird
(14:07):
eating it, you know what I mean? Oh totally. And
in the Smithsonian article by Abigail Tucker, she also talks
about how as a cost saving measure. And I've never
heard of this before, but I think this is pretty
smart because obviously this big, giant, showy cake is less
about a delicious, delectable treat and more about a show
of opulence. But you could actually get a kind of
a dummy cake that's made of styrofoam, that has a
(14:30):
single kind of decoy piece of cake that you can
cut out and use for the ceremony, and then the
guests just get, you know, a regular old Walmart sheet
cake or what have you, right, right, which does make sense.
And the problem with the styrofoam cake is, you know,
you have to be very careful about how you do
(14:51):
the cake smashing thing. If you choose to do it,
you got to pick the one real slice. And it's
tough for us to us being human beings, not just
Casey Nolan I, it's tough for us to collectively figure
out exactly when this cake serving thing became a cake
smashing thing. We know what's been around for several decades,
(15:13):
but probably not several centuries in this current form. We
just know there was stuff like it, and we've walked
through the perspective that this is in some ways a
folkloric drama right acted out. But most people, according to
experts are probably unaware of what this ritual is supposed
(15:35):
to signify, seeing it either as a fun riff on
cake cutting, you know, because everybody wants their wedding to
be fun, right, Everybody has like a little goofy joke
of some sort at some point they're like, oh, let's
play this as our first song, or they think it's
a silly custom that just needs to go away, and
it's levity, right. It adds a little fun, a little
(15:56):
lighthearted lark to the eatings. You know. I've been at
weddings where people do that, but it doesn't ever seem
to be a squabble, you know. It just seems to
be like they're both you know, we've had to be
serious for a little while and then, as you said,
let's have some levity. But it turns out noll that again.
(16:19):
According to Sylvester, this cake smashing tradition is in decline.
I can see why. I mean, it's gross. It's a wedding.
It's not like an episode of Double Dare, you know,
and you're not wearing smocks. And although I will say
I found a great page with a whole bunch of
different photos of various versions of this, and it goes
(16:40):
from you know, bride and groom with their hands in
each other's faces literally rubbing the cake in, to one
being a little more aggressive than the other. I've got
one here where the bride is pretty much pouncing on
the groom and just shoving this face. And then I've
got another one where the groom is actually wearing a
garbage bag, which seemed like probably the smart move, you
(17:04):
know it is to save that tuxedo. Those things are
not cheap, right, no kidding. And you know what else
I found. This is an unsubstantiated thing, but apparently it's
a pretty widespread rumor people believe with again no solid
proof that couples who do the wedding cake smashing thing
are more likely to be divorced later in life. Well,
(17:24):
as it turns out, Ben, I can speak to that.
I am, in fact divorced. I'm what they call a divorcee,
as am I. Yes, but I did not do the
cake smashing so and we did not marry each other.
This is true. Just for the record, We're just pals,
we're just buddies, but the work wives kind of we
do hang out a lot. We're hanging out after this
(17:45):
as well. So I was in a one way cake
smashing thing. I just the person I married. She just
smashed the cake kids my face. I thought it was funny.
You know, it's your good sport. Thanks man, I try
to be Also, it did get all over the tucks,
but that made it funnier and there's more risky business.
(18:06):
According to the wedding experts when you talk about cake smashing,
first cake fans or champion at the bit to point
out it is a waste of good cake. Yeah, no joke.
I mean some of these absurdly fancy cakes can equal
somewhere in the neighborhood of like twelve to thirteen bucks
a slice, and even just like an average kind of
(18:27):
front of the mill wedding cake can be at least
two or three bucks a slice. And you know, I'm
not one to waste good cake, Ben You know me
to be a fan of pastry, and I just feel
like this is a tradition that needs to go the
way of the bronte Sare you think so? Yes, So
you say nay to cake wasters? Huh Yeah, I have
(18:48):
a real problem with them. So it's interesting that even
the modern day some people see it as just all
in good fun, and then other people see it as
disrespectful and demeaning. And the tradition seems to evolved somewhat organically.
(19:14):
You know. There wasn't a There wasn't an article in
Vanity Fair or some sort of etiquette guide to weddings
that said, and at this point, the bride shall stuff
hug room's face with cake, rubbing it hither and fro
and or thither or thither. You know what. This also
made me think of the world is full of these
(19:37):
very specific wedding traditions, you know, And I found just
a couple. If you want a laundry list, I want
to hear what you think of the shoot. So in
weaker culture in China, grooms shoot their future bride with
a bow and arrow minus the arrowheads three times and
then they what's on the tip of the era just
(19:58):
it's just the shaft a that would still hurt, though
WEE would hope. Then they break the arrows to ensure
that the couple stays in love forever. See, I think
I would prefer the cake smashing to getting shot with
a projectile. Yeah, you can put an eye out with
one of those man right, And here's another one that
I thought, this is one that would be the line
(20:19):
for me. And you know, I really appreciated when you
said that I was in general a good sport. I
don't know if I could go with this one. In Scotland,
there's something called the blackening of the bride? Have you
heard of? This go on? So traditionally Scottish brides to
be are taken by surprise. Their friends kind of jump
them and they pelt them with stuff like curdled milk, deadfish,
(20:43):
spoiled food, tar and feathers, and then they're tied to
a tree and then after that they go out for
a night of drinking. And the idea here, the belief
is that if the bride can withstand that kind of treatment,
she can handle anything that comes her way in marriage.
Can we just up to the drinking? I mean, yeah,
I don't. I don't understand that's like some serious like
(21:05):
military hazing type stuff there. Yeah, yeah, when we're talking,
you know, it came to mind when we're talking about
the cultural implications right of smashing cake on someone, and
we've seen how it could become aggressive. But I don't
think that has anything on this throwing trash at people
and tying them to trees. Now that is not on,
my friend, not on one bit. Okay, just a couple
(21:28):
more of these if I want to gauge you on
this and see which ones you think are like understandable.
Gauge me up, all right. So in Mauritania, girls aged
between five and fifteen are sent to fat farms before
their wedding to pile on the pounds because it's also
seen as a status symbol. It's seen as a signal
(21:50):
that the groom is wealthy enough to keep the bride
satisfied in a very physical way. And then in another
part of China, brides of the Tujia people are required
to cry for an hour a day every day for
the month before their wedding. Well, that's that's just like
how I live. I have my daily cry. Sometimes it
(22:12):
lasts longer than an hour, though, it just depends. Is
it like meditative or no? You don't plan it, No,
it just comes upon me. Well, if you were doing
this in preparation for a wedding ten days before the wedding,
your mother would join you. The mother joins the bride
and they cry together, and then the grandmother joins as well, yeah,
I cry with my mom too, at least one day
(22:33):
out of the week. Well you know, I mean, whatever
it takes, man. Yeah, nothing like a good phone cry
with your mom, just to you know. We saw the
movie Coco the other week and we cried in tandem
during that film with my eight year old daughter, who
also cries. It was a three way cry, Catharde, it
really was. Is that a Pixar film? Oh boy? Was
it ever? The Pixar cry that's where it's at. I
(22:56):
have some friends who refuse to watch Pixar because they
feel that it's a socially manipulates a little bit. But I,
you know, bend me, break me, Pixar. It's fine. Yeah,
they're fantastic stories. Honestly, here's another weird story. And I
guess this can be the last unusual tradition. And by
the way, Nolan and I are not dinging any of these.
(23:17):
They're just strange and they were news to us newly
weds in France. For a while, we're forced to drink
leftovers from their wedding out of a toilet bowl. Nowadays
we're kind of leftovers stuff food from the wedding. Yeah,
Noel's making a very distasteful, sneer. Yeah, I agree with
(23:38):
you there, man. Nowadays, thankfully chocolate and champagne are repeatedly
used as a substitute, but still served out of a toilet. Okay,
then viva lace. I think we have run the gamut
of odd wedding customs in today's ridiculous history. Nugget a
little bit of a shorter one. So I think we're
going to wrap up today with a couple of cool,
(24:00):
fun listener males. Our first listener mail today comes from
Michelle and the subject is Butter episode, and she goes,
I know I'm late to the party with responni of
this episode, but I can't leave my feedback onset. I
love the Butter podcast. It was so interesting that this
had such a huge effect on how we practice religion
(24:22):
and spirituality and how that has evolved. However, I think
you guys missed a critical point with butter itself, which
is important in crafting the lens through which you view
the issue. You refer to butter as a spread, a seasoning,
and a stir fry agent. If this is all butter is,
then by nature it's a luxury, not a necessity. Also,
really stir fry in medieval Europe. Look, I wasn't saying
stir fry, as we know. I just meant, you know,
(24:43):
cooking different ingredients with some sort of cooking agents and
combining them. Surely that was a thing like a stew right,
come on, I don't know, I hear you, Michelle, though
you got me ding noted. But she goes on. However,
the piece you missed is that fat is a crucial
ingredient in aching bread, which even your vegan monks would
have been eating. Bread was the main dietary staple of
(25:05):
the time, and most of the world peasants would not
have been able to survive without bread because of, as
you mentioned, of the scarcity of food in that part
of the world. So these people without butter, the only
fat available to them, would have to choose between their
family starvation and their immortal soul. I think this changes
the lens fundamentally. You know, I'm tempted to agree, and
I really appreciate you pointing that out. Michelle. We've been
(25:26):
getting a lot of feedback about the butter episode in particular. Yeah,
most of it quite good, and this one, you know,
she's not being me, and she's got a really good point.
We definitely mentioned Bread, but I don't think we gave
it the weight that it probably deserved. So Michelle duly
noted and thank you for writing in and listening to
the show, and no spoilers, but stay tuned Bread fans.
(25:47):
So we have one more listener mail for today and
it pertains to our Antarctica episode. Sarah P. Writes in
to say Ben aol and superproducer Case. I found your
podcast yesterday and have quickly gone through every episode, thoroughly
enjoying it, as well as your thoughts on whether or
(26:08):
not to start a Pinterest account. Sarah side note here
you'll be glad to know that we have a meeting
about it every week. I really enjoyed all of them,
says Sarah, and had a question to ask in regards
the episode about who would have jurisdiction on a case
in Antarctica if an instant occurs on a country base
that is not the same country as the persons involved.
My initial reaction was why not have interpoll take care
(26:30):
of the incident? Granted I am not by any means
an expert on the organization, but I feel as an
organization that routinely assists multiple nations. They would be the
perfect organization to assist a continent that no nation can claim,
whether as a mediator between two countries or as the
lead in an investigation, they could be a useful asset
on Antarctica. On a side note, as a Philly girl,
(26:52):
I must recommend that if you want a good Philly
chee steak, you have to go to Gym's on South Street.
They have the best. No matter what anyone may say,
shots fired. I'm sure that's a serious point of contention
in Philly, and that's who has the best cheese steak.
And I'm sure there are many varying opinions on it,
but I am all about trying nixt If we ever
make it to the City of Brotherly Love, let's go.
(27:16):
Let's take Ridiculous History on the road, do a live
show sponsored by just the idea of Philly cheese steaks.
I am all about it, and thanks so much for
writing in Michelle and Sarah, and we hope that you
will write into us too at Ridiculous At HowStuffWorks dot com.
We're still plugging away at that Pinterest vision board getting there,
but you know we're going to debut it when the
(27:37):
time is right. We're taking a Hines fifty seven approach
to it. Good things come to those who debate Pinterest boards.
I love it. But you can also find us in
the meantime on various other Internet platforms. A Twitter now, yes,
we do have a Twitter account. Now we're going legit
by man man. It's a brave new world. And we
also have an Instagram and a Facebook. You can find
(28:00):
Nolan I on several other shows. But as it turns out,
we have a lot of things cooking here and we
have some new House of Work shows coming out. Now. Yeah,
I don't know if you guys know our buddy Ken
Jennings of Jeopardy fame. I think he's the the winning
ist Jeopardy contestant, and I think he only was finally
dethroned by the notorious Watson computer that bested him. But
(28:25):
you know, it's it's hard to fight back against our
robot overlord. So I still love you Ken. And Ken
and his buddy John Roderick, who was in a real
cool band called The Long Winters, have a new show
that will be available anywhere you get your podcasts by
the time you hear this episode called Omnibus where the
whole concept is their podcasting from the present for the
(28:45):
people of the distant future given some sort of monumental
catastrophe that would decimate our society, and they want to
preserve all kinds of weird esoteric bits of knowledge and
curio and do so with a plum. And they're quite
funny and charming, and it's got kind of a fun
sci fi quality to it. Actually was lucky enough I
(29:08):
got to do all the music for it and the
sound design. So give Omnibus a listen whenever you get
a chance, and right to them. Tell them Ben and
Noel sent you. Maybe that'll will that give him some creditor?
Will that be a ding? I don't know. I think
we might need to get credit from them, because this
show is going to be a hit. Yes, agreed. And
while you are looking for Omnibus, of course we want
(29:29):
to end on the question. Please write to us, let
us know what strange wedding traditions you have encountered or
taken part in, and most importantly, join us next time
for another episode of ridiculous history. Goodbye everyone. For more
(29:51):
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Hello, and welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous historians.
As we remarked earlier, our crew is on the road
right now. We wanted to share some classic episodes with you.
Shout out to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Also,
you're Noel, I've been. We've both been to weddings. As
(00:23):
a matter of fact, dude, both of us are going
to friends' weddings later this year. It's true. Friends do
occasionally get married, sometimes to each other. That's always tripping.
It happens, but it is an ancient tradition, as we know,
and oftentimes ancient traditions carry with them ritualistic behavior and
(00:44):
not necessarily like blood sacrifices, although you know, certainly, certainly
the wedding is in and of itself a sort of
psychological blood sacrifice. No weddings are great. Everyone should be
in love. I love that for all of you married
couples out there. But there are some weird wedding traditions,
some you may be, you know, intimately familiar with, like
(01:04):
the old throwing of the bouquet, and that weird one
with the garter. Never fully understood that one. We may
discuss some of those in this episode was specifically, I
think we've all sort of looked askance a bit at
that tradition of smashing cake into each other's faces at weddings. Yeah, man, Like, okay,
so full disclosure. I've officiated a number of weddings and
(01:29):
the cake thing stood out to both of us because again,
we actually Noel and I actually hang out on the
regular pretty often and we have these moments where one
of us says, you know, what's the deal with that?
And then I know, man, when we make eye contact
(01:50):
and we have like the silent nod. We want to
figure it out. So back in twenty seventeen, Noel and
Casey and now Max you're part of this, bro, we
asked ourselves, why do people smash cake on each other's
faces during weddings? Yeah? Why? Indeed, we're gonna find that
(02:14):
out together. Here it goes ridiculous. History is a production
of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show, Friends and neighbors, ladies
(02:59):
and gentlemen. And you know what that music means. I'm Ben,
I'm Nolan. Apparently it's a nice day for a white wedding. Yeah,
as we speak, given the just the raw numbers, odds
are that there are thousands of couples getting married today,
hundreds of thousands, even, it's very true. It is a
popular pastime. And of course we are joined by our
(03:24):
super producer, Casey Pegram here and today we are looking
at one of the world's most universal traditions, the tradition
of matrimony. I like to call it nuptials. Nuptials is
cool too, it just sounds cute. And we know whether
or not you have been married, or whether or not
(03:48):
you've actually been to a wedding. It's impossible not to
know a little bit about it because it's such a
fundamental part of so much fiction. It's in so many films,
not just rom comms, yeah, but definitely in rom coms. Definitely,
definitely big in romcoms. So everybody is aware on some
level of the basic idea that typically it's going to
(04:09):
be two people who decide that they're going to in
front of members of their society and in the eyes
of the law usually as well, and the Lord and
the Lord right, whatever lord that may be. Precisely, they're
going to be an official item till death do they part,
unless it's a shotgun wedding, unless it's a shotgun wedding,
(04:32):
in which case you're sort of out of luck. You
guy's got to kind of bite the bullet, or you
have to bite the bullet daddy's bullet. So at some
point you and I have looked into weird traditions before traditions,
I want to be fair, traditions that might seem unusual
to outsiders. We've looked into this sort of thing before tradition.
(04:56):
Do you know that you've seen The Fiddler on the Roof?
I have a long time ago all about tradition. In fact,
one of the most popular songs from it is the
song tradition, Oh really that goes like I just say,
was that an excerpt? Is that the whole thing? That
was just my my bit. That's really the only the
only lyric I remember, But there's a whole song around it.
You guys can check it out in your own time, Yes,
(05:17):
please do. And while you are checking things out, you
may also run into other strange traditions. We're familiar with
some wedding traditions like uh, tossing the garter belts? What's
that one about? Always that seems so ascay. It's like
the person who catches the garter belt traditionally is amongst
like the male folk or the grooms and they're gonna
(05:39):
get married next. But then and then the bouquet is
the female who's gonna get married next. Yeah, yeah, at
least traditionally, And I know there's some problematic gender norms
in there, but sometimes tradition has problems, right, Yeah, And
you know, these traditions range from the you know, innocuous,
to the bizarre, and the one we're talking about today
(06:01):
I find pretty intensely bizarre because at some point in
history it became a thing for the happy couple to
shove wedding cake into each other's face holes, to have
a miniature and intimate food fight in front of everybody
(06:21):
else at the wedding because other wedding members don't do
this a ritualistic force feeding. Yes, and we do know
that newly weds beforehand would feed the first slice of
wedding cake to one another and it was a symbol
of their commitment right to provide for one another. And
this comes from Rachel Sylvester, associate Real Weddings editor with
(06:44):
the Knot. However, says Sylvester, the symbolisms often lost and
it's been replaced increasingly now with this tradition that Noel
just described. There is a fantastic Dear Abbey letter from
June of twenty eleven, where Faithful writes into Abby and says,
Dear Abbe, I'm writing you about a disgusting, rude and
(07:07):
obscene habit the bride and groom shoving wedding cake into
each other's faces. How rude and insensitive to the person
he or she just promised to love, honor and cherish,
not to mention disrespectful? What do you think of this custom?
And dear Abbey has okay, so no mention words on
Faithful spart and Dear Abbey seems to agree, saying, Dear Faithful,
(07:29):
the customs should have been retired at least fifty years ago.
The significance of this quote unquote ritual is demeaning to women,
right because dear Abbey says, according to curious customs by
Tad Tuleja, the cake cutting at modern weddings is a
fourth step comedic ritual that sustains masculine prerogatives in the
very act of supposedly subverting them. So Abby goes on
(07:52):
in the first step of the comedy, the groom helps
direct the hand of the bride in a symbolic demonstration
of male control that was unnecessary in the days of
more tractable women. And what I love about this is
it really pushes home the kind of inherent misogyny in
(08:14):
This makes a little bit of a stretch to me,
but I'm going to go with it. I think it's interesting.
So the female, the bride, she accepts this gesture and
according to Abby, this serves as further proof of her submissiveness,
and then performing the second step of the ritual, which
seems to be a twist where she offers him the
first bite of cake, but then playfully in the third step,
(08:37):
she subverts this trope by shoving it in his face
playfully right. And then Abby goes on that this act
of revolt is performed in a childish fashion, and the
groom is able to endure it without losing face because
it ironically demonstrates his superiority. His bride is an imp
needing supervision, and the idea hears that the bride is
(09:00):
being infantilized to a degree. I would tend to describe
this argument as based in patriarchy, even more so than misogyny.
But they're both present there if you believe this, And
the idea here is almost it's depicted, at least in
this quotation, as a ritualistic theater of sorts, as a play,
(09:26):
almost and with clear beats to the story. And then
the bride has apologetically wiped clean the groom's face and
is now obedient to his dignified, somehow inherently wiser self.
So you have to wonder how far back does this go.
(09:46):
We know in ancient room the bride could expect to
conclude festivities by having a barley cake smashed upside her head.
So in this case, back in Rome, it was the
bride who got cakes mashed. Yeah, And then I found
this great Smithsonian article that the details some other early
(10:07):
cake traditions, and it says that in medieval England the
bride and groom would kiss each other on top of
a pile of buns, and this act was meant to
demonstrate and ensure even their prosperity in the years to come.
But there's another weird part about that one, Yeah, they're sure,
(10:28):
is the unmarried guests. A lot of these things seemed
to before the unmarried guests in general, with the garter
and the bouquet and the whole taking home a piece
of cake, because in this ritual the guests would sometimes
take a little piece as a souvenir of this cake
that they would tuck under their pillow like the tooth fairy,
(10:48):
despite the fact that they were very well aware of
all the things that happened to it. And as it
turns out, this particular recipe in these early British traditions
was something called bride's pie pye, which mixed something called coxcombs,
which I believe is the frill, the little hand looking
(11:09):
thing on top of a of a male chicken. Mixed
that with lamb testicles, sweetbreads, which if for my money,
I quite enjoy sweetbreads if they're prepared well, oysters which
are also good, and a lot of spices. And then
there was another version of this recipe that included boiled
calf's feet, and this did change in the sixteenth century. Oh,
(11:33):
I want to not forget another note about Rome. There
in ancient Rome, it's also argued that this tradition of
barley caking was which I've just made a verb. I
like it. Oh, thanks man. This tradition of barley caking
was also done to symbolize male dominance and to encourage fertility,
(11:53):
and this practice stayed with us today. When did things
change We can date it to around the mid sixteenth entry,
because sugar was becoming more plentiful and affordable in England. Yeah,
and sugar became a really important ingredient in cakes, not
only because it tastes way better than lamb's testicles, one
would assume, but also it symbolized the purity and virginity
(12:17):
of the bride to be and also it was a
serious status symbol, right Ben, Yeah, it was absolutely serious
status symbol because it goes back to the color of
it as well as the show of wealth and opulence
for the wedding party and the wedding goers. Look at
this tremendous cake. And even now we see this. I
(12:39):
believe it was during Princess Diana's wedding that the cake
was five feet tall and they had a stunt double
cake in case something happened to the first one. Yeah,
and wedding cakes are big business these days, is all
(13:00):
the you know, the wedding reality shows and the cooking
shows and cake Boss and all of the fondunt and
the different versions of these absurd cakes that you can
get in all kinds of shapes and sizes. They can
be you know, like a race car or a volcano
that spews fourth lava even or you know, something like
(13:23):
your your favorite sports car perhaps, or if you're, you know,
having a Star Wars wedding, it could be at a
moscale model of tattooing. And one person doubled down, right,
We read about a We read about one bride who
had a full sized replica of herself. Is the cake,
which to me is weird. It's a little vain maybe,
you know, it's very eat of my flesh. Typically you
(13:46):
have the tiny bride and groom as the topper of
the cake. But that's that's a real stretch to have
an entire cake that appears to be a facsimile of
just one member of the wedding party. Well, if both
the bride and her spouse are into it, then it's
their call. I would just personally feel kind of weird
(14:07):
eating it, you know what I mean? Oh totally. And
in the Smithsonian article by Abigail Tucker, she also talks
about how as a cost saving measure. And I've never
heard of this before, but I think this is pretty
smart because obviously this big, giant, showy cake is less
about a delicious, delectable treat and more about a show
of opulence. But you could actually get a kind of
a dummy cake that's made of styrofoam, that has a
(14:30):
single kind of decoy piece of cake that you can
cut out and use for the ceremony, and then the
guests just get, you know, a regular old Walmart sheet
cake or what have you, right, right, which does make sense.
And the problem with the styrofoam cake is, you know,
you have to be very careful about how you do
(14:51):
the cake smashing thing. If you choose to do it,
you got to pick the one real slice. And it's
tough for us to us being human beings, not just
Casey Nolan I, it's tough for us to collectively figure
out exactly when this cake serving thing became a cake
smashing thing. We know what's been around for several decades,
(15:13):
but probably not several centuries in this current form. We
just know there was stuff like it, and we've walked
through the perspective that this is in some ways a
folkloric drama right acted out. But most people, according to
experts are probably unaware of what this ritual is supposed
(15:35):
to signify, seeing it either as a fun riff on
cake cutting, you know, because everybody wants their wedding to
be fun, right, Everybody has like a little goofy joke
of some sort at some point they're like, oh, let's
play this as our first song, or they think it's
a silly custom that just needs to go away, and
it's levity, right. It adds a little fun, a little
(15:56):
lighthearted lark to the eatings. You know. I've been at
weddings where people do that, but it doesn't ever seem
to be a squabble, you know. It just seems to
be like they're both you know, we've had to be
serious for a little while and then, as you said,
let's have some levity. But it turns out noll that again.
(16:19):
According to Sylvester, this cake smashing tradition is in decline.
I can see why. I mean, it's gross. It's a wedding.
It's not like an episode of Double Dare, you know,
and you're not wearing smocks. And although I will say
I found a great page with a whole bunch of
different photos of various versions of this, and it goes
(16:40):
from you know, bride and groom with their hands in
each other's faces literally rubbing the cake in, to one
being a little more aggressive than the other. I've got
one here where the bride is pretty much pouncing on
the groom and just shoving this face. And then I've
got another one where the groom is actually wearing a
garbage bag, which seemed like probably the smart move, you
(17:04):
know it is to save that tuxedo. Those things are
not cheap, right, no kidding. And you know what else
I found. This is an unsubstantiated thing, but apparently it's
a pretty widespread rumor people believe with again no solid
proof that couples who do the wedding cake smashing thing
are more likely to be divorced later in life. Well,
(17:24):
as it turns out, Ben, I can speak to that.
I am, in fact divorced. I'm what they call a divorcee,
as am I. Yes, but I did not do the
cake smashing so and we did not marry each other.
This is true. Just for the record, We're just pals,
we're just buddies, but the work wives kind of we
do hang out a lot. We're hanging out after this
(17:45):
as well. So I was in a one way cake
smashing thing. I just the person I married. She just
smashed the cake kids my face. I thought it was funny.
You know, it's your good sport. Thanks man, I try
to be Also, it did get all over the tucks,
but that made it funnier and there's more risky business.
(18:06):
According to the wedding experts when you talk about cake smashing,
first cake fans or champion at the bit to point
out it is a waste of good cake. Yeah, no joke.
I mean some of these absurdly fancy cakes can equal
somewhere in the neighborhood of like twelve to thirteen bucks
a slice, and even just like an average kind of
(18:27):
front of the mill wedding cake can be at least
two or three bucks a slice. And you know, I'm
not one to waste good cake, Ben You know me
to be a fan of pastry, and I just feel
like this is a tradition that needs to go the
way of the bronte Sare you think so? Yes, So
you say nay to cake wasters? Huh Yeah, I have
(18:48):
a real problem with them. So it's interesting that even
the modern day some people see it as just all
in good fun, and then other people see it as
disrespectful and demeaning. And the tradition seems to evolved somewhat organically.
(19:14):
You know. There wasn't a There wasn't an article in
Vanity Fair or some sort of etiquette guide to weddings
that said, and at this point, the bride shall stuff
hug room's face with cake, rubbing it hither and fro
and or thither or thither. You know what. This also
made me think of the world is full of these
(19:37):
very specific wedding traditions, you know, And I found just
a couple. If you want a laundry list, I want
to hear what you think of the shoot. So in
weaker culture in China, grooms shoot their future bride with
a bow and arrow minus the arrowheads three times and
then they what's on the tip of the era just
(19:58):
it's just the shaft a that would still hurt, though
WEE would hope. Then they break the arrows to ensure
that the couple stays in love forever. See, I think
I would prefer the cake smashing to getting shot with
a projectile. Yeah, you can put an eye out with
one of those man right, And here's another one that
I thought, this is one that would be the line
(20:19):
for me. And you know, I really appreciated when you
said that I was in general a good sport. I
don't know if I could go with this one. In Scotland,
there's something called the blackening of the bride? Have you
heard of? This go on? So traditionally Scottish brides to
be are taken by surprise. Their friends kind of jump
them and they pelt them with stuff like curdled milk, deadfish,
(20:43):
spoiled food, tar and feathers, and then they're tied to
a tree and then after that they go out for
a night of drinking. And the idea here, the belief
is that if the bride can withstand that kind of treatment,
she can handle anything that comes her way in marriage.
Can we just up to the drinking? I mean, yeah,
I don't. I don't understand that's like some serious like
(21:05):
military hazing type stuff there. Yeah, yeah, when we're talking,
you know, it came to mind when we're talking about
the cultural implications right of smashing cake on someone, and
we've seen how it could become aggressive. But I don't
think that has anything on this throwing trash at people
and tying them to trees. Now that is not on,
my friend, not on one bit. Okay, just a couple
(21:28):
more of these if I want to gauge you on
this and see which ones you think are like understandable.
Gauge me up, all right. So in Mauritania, girls aged
between five and fifteen are sent to fat farms before
their wedding to pile on the pounds because it's also
seen as a status symbol. It's seen as a signal
(21:50):
that the groom is wealthy enough to keep the bride
satisfied in a very physical way. And then in another
part of China, brides of the Tujia people are required
to cry for an hour a day every day for
the month before their wedding. Well, that's that's just like
how I live. I have my daily cry. Sometimes it
(22:12):
lasts longer than an hour, though, it just depends. Is
it like meditative or no? You don't plan it, No,
it just comes upon me. Well, if you were doing
this in preparation for a wedding ten days before the wedding,
your mother would join you. The mother joins the bride
and they cry together, and then the grandmother joins as well, yeah,
I cry with my mom too, at least one day
(22:33):
out of the week. Well you know, I mean, whatever
it takes, man. Yeah, nothing like a good phone cry
with your mom, just to you know. We saw the
movie Coco the other week and we cried in tandem
during that film with my eight year old daughter, who
also cries. It was a three way cry, Catharde, it
really was. Is that a Pixar film? Oh boy? Was
it ever? The Pixar cry that's where it's at. I
(22:56):
have some friends who refuse to watch Pixar because they
feel that it's a socially manipulates a little bit. But I,
you know, bend me, break me, Pixar. It's fine. Yeah,
they're fantastic stories. Honestly, here's another weird story. And I
guess this can be the last unusual tradition. And by
the way, Nolan and I are not dinging any of these.
(23:17):
They're just strange and they were news to us newly
weds in France. For a while, we're forced to drink
leftovers from their wedding out of a toilet bowl. Nowadays
we're kind of leftovers stuff food from the wedding. Yeah,
Noel's making a very distasteful, sneer. Yeah, I agree with
(23:38):
you there, man. Nowadays, thankfully chocolate and champagne are repeatedly
used as a substitute, but still served out of a toilet. Okay,
then viva lace. I think we have run the gamut
of odd wedding customs in today's ridiculous history. Nugget a
little bit of a shorter one. So I think we're
going to wrap up today with a couple of cool,
(24:00):
fun listener males. Our first listener mail today comes from
Michelle and the subject is Butter episode, and she goes,
I know I'm late to the party with responni of
this episode, but I can't leave my feedback onset. I
love the Butter podcast. It was so interesting that this
had such a huge effect on how we practice religion
(24:22):
and spirituality and how that has evolved. However, I think
you guys missed a critical point with butter itself, which
is important in crafting the lens through which you view
the issue. You refer to butter as a spread, a seasoning,
and a stir fry agent. If this is all butter is,
then by nature it's a luxury, not a necessity. Also,
really stir fry in medieval Europe. Look, I wasn't saying
stir fry, as we know. I just meant, you know,
(24:43):
cooking different ingredients with some sort of cooking agents and
combining them. Surely that was a thing like a stew right,
come on, I don't know, I hear you, Michelle, though
you got me ding noted. But she goes on. However,
the piece you missed is that fat is a crucial
ingredient in aching bread, which even your vegan monks would
have been eating. Bread was the main dietary staple of
(25:05):
the time, and most of the world peasants would not
have been able to survive without bread because of, as
you mentioned, of the scarcity of food in that part
of the world. So these people without butter, the only
fat available to them, would have to choose between their
family starvation and their immortal soul. I think this changes
the lens fundamentally. You know, I'm tempted to agree, and
I really appreciate you pointing that out. Michelle. We've been
(25:26):
getting a lot of feedback about the butter episode in particular. Yeah,
most of it quite good, and this one, you know,
she's not being me, and she's got a really good point.
We definitely mentioned Bread, but I don't think we gave
it the weight that it probably deserved. So Michelle duly
noted and thank you for writing in and listening to
the show, and no spoilers, but stay tuned Bread fans.
(25:47):
So we have one more listener mail for today and
it pertains to our Antarctica episode. Sarah P. Writes in
to say Ben aol and superproducer Case. I found your
podcast yesterday and have quickly gone through every episode, thoroughly
enjoying it, as well as your thoughts on whether or
(26:08):
not to start a Pinterest account. Sarah side note here
you'll be glad to know that we have a meeting
about it every week. I really enjoyed all of them,
says Sarah, and had a question to ask in regards
the episode about who would have jurisdiction on a case
in Antarctica if an instant occurs on a country base
that is not the same country as the persons involved.
My initial reaction was why not have interpoll take care
(26:30):
of the incident? Granted I am not by any means
an expert on the organization, but I feel as an
organization that routinely assists multiple nations. They would be the
perfect organization to assist a continent that no nation can claim,
whether as a mediator between two countries or as the
lead in an investigation, they could be a useful asset
on Antarctica. On a side note, as a Philly girl,
(26:52):
I must recommend that if you want a good Philly
chee steak, you have to go to Gym's on South Street.
They have the best. No matter what anyone may say,
shots fired. I'm sure that's a serious point of contention
in Philly, and that's who has the best cheese steak.
And I'm sure there are many varying opinions on it,
but I am all about trying nixt If we ever
make it to the City of Brotherly Love, let's go.
(27:16):
Let's take Ridiculous History on the road, do a live
show sponsored by just the idea of Philly cheese steaks.
I am all about it, and thanks so much for
writing in Michelle and Sarah, and we hope that you
will write into us too at Ridiculous At HowStuffWorks dot com.
We're still plugging away at that Pinterest vision board getting there,
but you know we're going to debut it when the
(27:37):
time is right. We're taking a Hines fifty seven approach
to it. Good things come to those who debate Pinterest boards.
I love it. But you can also find us in
the meantime on various other Internet platforms. A Twitter now, yes,
we do have a Twitter account. Now we're going legit
by man man. It's a brave new world. And we
also have an Instagram and a Facebook. You can find
(28:00):
Nolan I on several other shows. But as it turns out,
we have a lot of things cooking here and we
have some new House of Work shows coming out. Now. Yeah,
I don't know if you guys know our buddy Ken
Jennings of Jeopardy fame. I think he's the the winning
ist Jeopardy contestant, and I think he only was finally
dethroned by the notorious Watson computer that bested him. But
(28:25):
you know, it's it's hard to fight back against our
robot overlord. So I still love you Ken. And Ken
and his buddy John Roderick, who was in a real
cool band called The Long Winters, have a new show
that will be available anywhere you get your podcasts by
the time you hear this episode called Omnibus where the
whole concept is their podcasting from the present for the
(28:45):
people of the distant future given some sort of monumental
catastrophe that would decimate our society, and they want to
preserve all kinds of weird esoteric bits of knowledge and
curio and do so with a plum. And they're quite
funny and charming, and it's got kind of a fun
sci fi quality to it. Actually was lucky enough I
(29:08):
got to do all the music for it and the
sound design. So give Omnibus a listen whenever you get
a chance, and right to them. Tell them Ben and
Noel sent you. Maybe that'll will that give him some creditor?
Will that be a ding? I don't know. I think
we might need to get credit from them, because this
show is going to be a hit. Yes, agreed. And
while you are looking for Omnibus, of course we want
(29:29):
to end on the question. Please write to us, let
us know what strange wedding traditions you have encountered or
taken part in, and most importantly, join us next time
for another episode of ridiculous history. Goodbye everyone. For more
(29:51):
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
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