BOSTON UNIVERSITY
METROPOLITAN COLLEGE
Thesis
FROM FRUITCAKE TO FOAM: COMMODITY FETISHISM, ‘TRADITION’,
AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE WEDDING CAKE
By
LUCY R. VALENA
B.A., Hampshire College, 2007
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the degree of
Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy
2015
1
2
Acknowledgements
I am thoroughly indebted to my first reader, Ben Siegel, for his patience and help as I found my way through this process. This was very difficult for me, and I really would have been lost without him. Thank you also to my second reader, Karen Metheny, for the detailed edits and thorough proofread.
My experience in the Gastronomy program was life-changing, and I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to complete it. Thank you to my former staff at
Voltage Coffee & Art for covering my shifts when needed. Thank you to my parents Dale and Edso for their support in all of my wild adventures, including this one. Most of all, thank you to my husband John for so many delicious late night dinners of roasted vegetables and sparkling wine, and for patiently listening to many tangents about royal icing, etc.
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Introduction
Food is complicated. While food studies scholars have argued for decades about the proper approach with which to ‘read’ food, one thing that everyone in the discipline can agree on is this: the preparation of food is more than a survival mechanism, and when we consume food, we are consuming far more than mere calories and other nutrients.
As a social ‘language’, food is often discussed as a site for identity creation and performance of status. However, the research done within the field of food studies tends to focus on everyday activities. Local foodways, food attitudes, and cooking practices are general components of daily life in any given society. The similarities and differences of how these practices manifest provide a useful ‘lens’ for understanding different groups of people, whether the focus is across cultures or class lines.
This rigorous examination of daily activities was first called for by feminist scholars in the 1970’s, as the study of homelife and ‘interior’ female space serves to legitimize work traditionally done by women.1 These studies strive to level the fields of history and other social sciences which generally focus on the ‘exterior’, male-dominated spaces of war and industry.
In the movement towards the everyday and away from the epic, a gap in understanding has emerged within the field of food studies. While the foods we prepare and consume on a daily basis have been examined through many different angles, not
1 A survey of these studies can be found in Felski, Rita. “The Invention of Everyday Life.” Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture. New York: New York University Press. 2000. 77-98 4
enough questions are asked about the foods that definitively fall outside of this category.
The wedding cake, a food that for all intents and purposes one is expected to purchase only once in a lifetime, is an excellent example of such a foodstuff. A dream-like object that “speaks of the liminality of the wedding day itself—a transitory
2 state between two more prosaic realities,” the wedding cake serves as the centerpiece for a day that is absolutely unlike all other days in the life of an individual. The modern wedding, defined by an emphasis on luxury and romance, represents a separate space from ordinary life. As a ceremonial food inextricably tied to liminal space, wedding cake is worthy of serious inquiry. It is worth considering because it is not “a norm that ineluctably and directly guides everyday activities but rather is an image illuminating a
3 culture’s self-consciousness of the threat posed to its integrity.”
Mary Douglas famously remarked that a “competent young anthropologist” visiting from Mars would be confused when attending a contemporary wedding, and would have a hard time deciding “whether the central focus of the ceremony was the
4 marriage or the cake.” Originating in Britain in the seventeenth century, wedding cake continues to be a very important part of Western culture. Given the extreme changes seen by the world in the past four hundred years, it is worth asking why. How has the wedding cake maintained cultural relevance for such a long time?
This study will examine the wedding cake as an evolving food object that has maintained its cultural functionality through changes in its appearance. After reviewing
2 Humble, Nicola. Cake: A Global History. London: Reaktion, 2010. 83 3 Taussig, Michael. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1980. 4 Douglas, Mary. “Food as an Art Form.” In In the Active Voice, 105-113. London: Routledge, 1982. 105 5
the available literature, I will illuminate the functions of wedding cake that have remained consistent through time. To showcase these forces at work, I will then locate how these functions have been expressed within three distinct periods of change in wedding cake history. Following that, I will offer the phenomenon of the fake wedding cake industry, as well as the reaction to that industry in mainstream media, as ‘proof’ of the relevance of wedding cake in contemporary America.
The methodologies used in this study include the unpacking of primary literature such as recipes, periodicals, and relevant online resources. To make sense of the fake cake trade, interviews were conducted. Literary analysis of a mainstream television show was also employed in order to showcase contemporary attitudes towards wedding cake.
Literature Review and Theoretical Framework
Studies of the wedding trade have been numerous. Within the modern wedding, the gradual effects of commercialization over the past two centuries have been examined,
5 6 and established as a site for status performance. In addition, particular aspects of
7 8 weddings, such as wedding photography, and wedding advertisements, have been highlighted as zones that often perpetuate the idea of a wedding as a sacred ritual.
5 Otnes, Cele and Pleck, Elizabeth. Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003; Penner, Barbara. “A Vision of Love and Luxury: The Commercialization of Nineteenth Century American Weddings.” Winterthur Portfolio. Vol.39, No. 1, 1-20. 6 Dunak, Karen. As Long as We Both Shall Love: The White Wedding in Postwar America. New York: New York University Press. 2013 7 Bezner, Lili. “’Divine Detritus:’ An Analysis of American Wedding Photography.” Studies in Popular Culture 18, No. 2 (1996): 19-33. 8 Otnes, Cele and Scott, Linda. “Something Old, Something New: Exploring the Interaction Between Ritual and Advertising”. Journal of Advertising. Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 33-50 6
9 Various cakes have been studied as evolving foodstuffs and as sites for the
10 performance of tradition. The function of the wedding cake in particular has been
11 studied within the context of royal spectacle in Victorian England, and as a symbolic
12 object in Japanese weddings. These studies focus on highly specific moments in time and place, and do not attempt to draw conclusions about the persistence of this tradition over time.
The question of how the wedding cake has remained relevant has been taken on by two different scholars, both of whom present theories that ultimately fall short.
Douglas’ structuralist interpretation positions wedding cake as an elevated version of
13 common daily food —an argument that is inherently problematic, given the otherworldly quality of weddings. I argue that the wedding cake is an object that “cannot
14 be fitted like a cog wheel into a structural-functional ‘place’ in society.” Rather, it should be studied as a cultural ‘text’ that is expressive in nature.
This expressive quality has been written off by Charsley, who attributes the
15 survival of the wedding cake to a phenomenon he terms ‘marooning’. His theory suggests that the meaningful quality that wedding cakes seem to have is a modern
9 Leach, Helen and Raelene Inglis. “The Archeology of Christmas Cakes” Food and Foodways. June 2010; 10 Gaudet, Marcia. “Ribbons Pulls in Wedding Cakes: Tracing a New Orleans Tradition”. Folklore. Vol. 117, No. 1 (2006); Henisch, Bridget. Cakes and Characters: an English Christmas Tradition. London: Prospect Books. 1984 11 Allen, Emily. “Culinary Exhibition: Victorian Wedding Cakes and Royal Spectacle”. Victorian Studies. Vol. 45, No. 3 (2003) 12 Edwards, Walter. “Something Borrowed: Wedding Cakes as Symbols in Modern Japan”. American Ethnologist. Vol. 9, No. 1 (2006) 13 Douglas, Mary. “Food as an Art Form.“ In In the Active Voice, 105-113. London: Routledge. 1982. 113 14 Taussig, Michael.The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill: UNC Press.1980. 96 15 Charsley, Simon. Wedding Cakes and Cultural History. London: Routledge. 1992. 133 7
construction resulting from the loss of historic context over time. While this argument is compelling, it does little to explain the actual survival of the cake, and fails to identify the forces at work that have allowed it to remain culturally relevant.
Here ‘culture’ is understood to mean a “set of control mechanisms—plans,
16 recipes, rules, instructions […] for the governing of behavior.” Within contemporary
American culture the wedding cake holds a unique position of both sentimentality and prestige, and ultimately possesses a ‘mystical quality’ of good luck while also serving as a site for status performance.
Part of the importance of wedding cakes can be explained by Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism.17 In a capitalist society, the work that goes into producing objects is hidden from us, and is embedded in the product in the form of ‘congealed labor’, which we read as ‘intrinsic value’. Marx argues that commodity fetishism can be related to the same reasoning that allows for religious thought. While in the world of religion, “the
18 productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life,” commodity fetishism allows for objects created by the human hand to appear to have inherent worth, to which we ascribe monetary value.
Because it is by definition a labor-intensive product, the very concept of a wedding cake has intrinsic value. While the congealed labor within the cake explains the prestige and status performance aspect, it does not explain the symbolic power that has also been instrumental to its relevance.
16 Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973.44 17 Marx, Karl. Capital, Vol 1. Marx/Engels Internet Archive (Marxists.org) 1999. Orig. published 1867 18 Ibid, Section IV 8
The factor responsible for the sentimentality (which imbues the wedding cake with the perception of good luck) is what I call ‘congealed precedent’. Following Marx, this term refers to the mystical quality we ascribe to repetitive actions performed over generations. These repetitive actions allow for the concept of consistency in a chaotic and ever changing world. The repetition of the action is embedded in a given practice in the form of ‘compressed time’, which we read as ‘tradition’.
Within the history of wedding cake, commodity fetishism and congealed precedent have worked in tandem to create a site for the performance of
‘distinction’—Bourdieu’s term for the social forces that affect the daily aesthetic choices
19 made by the individual. In an endless cycle, distinction is “produced by the very race
20 and competition which it produces.” As an object used for the performance of status, wedding cake has been adapted over time in order to remain fashionable. “Every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to
21 disappear irretrievably,” and if the appearance of the wedding cake had been rigid and unchanging from the beginning, it might have disappeared long ago.
The two functions of wedding cake—a) the need to honor ‘tradition’, and b) the desire to perform status—have created a system which allows for the institution of wedding cake to be permanently tied to distinction. The fluidity through which these factors have been presented throughout the centuries has been crucial for the survival of this foodstuff.
19 Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. New York: Routledge, 1984. 20 Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. New York: Routledge, 1984. 247 21 Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken, 1968. 255 9
Key Moments in the Evolution of Wedding Cake
The use of wedding cake was a part of the set of ‘plans and rules’ that made up
British culture in the seventeenth century, and it is a part of the set of plans and rules that make up contemporary American culture. The wedding cake of our current era looks absolutely nothing like the ‘bride cake’ of long ago, however. The transformation of this object from a glorified fruitcake into a tower of (sometimes inedible) material is the result of slow evolution that has taken place over a period of three hundred years.
In this section, I will present three periods in which a major, radical change occurred in the appearance of wedding cakes. In each of these eras, I will identify the themes of commodity fetishism, ‘tradition’, and how these forces come together to create distinction.
Whiteness and Purity: Royal Icing in the Eighteenth Century
Figure 1. Fruit cake becomes frosted
In the eighteenth century, a wedding cake of distinction was a single-layered rich
10
fruit cake covered with icing of the purest white possible. The cake itself, an echo of the
‘plumb cake’ of the medieval era, was the component that presented ‘tradition’. Raised with ale barm and baked in a hoop, these cakes were very large and studded with dried fruits. They were flavored with large quantities of spices and liquor, a trademark of medieval festival dishes.
The icing was the ‘new’ part of the wedding cake, and it performed status through commodity fetishism. The transformation from a fruit cake (which visibly showcased the luxurious imported ingredients) to an iced cake (which showed off the labor used to create it) is the first important period of change in wedding cake history (Fig. 1).
‘Royal Icing’, a mixture of beaten egg white and refined sugar, was a creation which also came out of the medieval period, and related to a genre of decorative foods known as ‘subtleties’.22 These foods, which were originally very elaborate and reserved for large banquets, evolved into smaller displays that were more commonplace.
The discovery of the power of beaten eggs allowed for showy, spectacle dishes
23 that were mostly composed of air. An excellent example of this is the following recipe for ‘Snow Cream’, from Hannah Wooley’s book The Queen-Like Closet: Take a Pint of Cream, and the Whites of three Eggs, one spoonful or two of Rosewater, whip it to a Froth with a Birchen Rod, then cast it off the Rod into a Dish, in the which you have first fastened half a Manchet [a yeasted bread roll] with some Butter on the bottom, and a long Rosemary sprig in the middle; when you have all cast the Snow on the dish, then
22 Charsley 1988, 255 23 Wilson, Bee. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat. New York: Basic Books. 2012. 156 11
garnish it with several sorts of sweet-meats. 24
Although this ‘dish’ is composed completely from edible ingredients, it is not meant for eating, but for display. This centerpiece, which probably resembled a strange, snow-covered tree studded with candy, would have suggested status for a few reasons, not the least of which was the luxury of using food to produce something essentially inedible.
Unfortunately for kitchen workers of the time, the trend of using large quantities of beaten eggs was not connected to new technologies that would have made this task any easier. In the passage above, Wooley advises the use of a ‘birchen rod’, and indeed a bunch of sticks was the standard ‘appliance’ used for beating eggs until the nineteenth
25 century.
Creating these dishes simply required a lot of labor, and when the technique used to make ‘snow’ and other subtleties was transferred to the making of icing for cakes, the context changed, but the luxurious reputation did not.
The following recipe for cake icing, from the 1737 book The Complete Family-Piece, is typical of the time: Take 2 Pounds of the finest double refined Sugar, beat and sift it very fine, and likewise beat and sift a little Starch and mix with it ; then beat 6 Whites of Eggs to a Froth, and put to it some Gumwater ; the Gum must be steeped in Orange-flower- water ; then mix and beat all these together 2 Hours, and put it on your Cake when 'tis baked, set it in the Oven a quarter
24 Wooley, Hannah. The Queen-Like Closet. London: Richard Lowdes. 1675. 62 25 Wilson 2012, 158.
12
of an Hour. 26
In order to produce the ‘double refined’ sugar required for the making of icing, it had to be ground down (it was purchased in a block) and refined using a mortar and
27 pestle and a series of sieves. Even after all of that grinding, the recipe above specifies beating everything together for two hours.
Even that is to say nothing of the sugar itself, which was an expensive ingredient because of all of the labor involved. The production of sugar, which took place oversees and depended on enslaved populations, required an elaborate process of crushing, juicing,
28 and boiling in successively smaller copper pots. The whiter the sugar, the more
29 processed it was, and therefore the more expensive.
Elizabeth Raffald’s famous book The Experienced English Housekeeper, was published in 1769. By that point, although the icing of cakes was still rather unusual and reserved for special occasions, “icing as something distinct, of which the basic
30 ingredients were powdered sugar and beaten egg white, was well established.”
However, Elizabeth Raffald’s recipe for ‘Bride Cake’ contributed a new innovation. While other recipes of the time (including the recipe quoted above) required that the baker cover the cake with icing and put it back in the oven to harden, Raffald’s recipe suggested something different. The cake, once baked, was covered with a layer of
26 The Complete Family-Piece: And, Country Gentleman, and Farmer’s Best Guide. London: A. Bettesworth, 1737. 185 27Wilson 2012, 159 28 See Singerman, David. “Inventing Purity in the Atlantic Sugar World 1860-1930.” (Doctoral thesis, MIT) 2014, 61 29 Minz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin, 1985. 87 30 Charsley, Simon. “The Wedding Cake: History and Meanings”. Folklore. Vol. 99, No. 2 (1988), 236 13
almond paste and then returned in the oven to brown. Once the cake had come out of the oven for the second time, the icing was then spread over the hot almond paste; “if it be put on as the Cake comes out of the Oven, it will be hard by that Time the Cake is cold
31 [sic].” This technique achieved an icing that hardened into a shiny layer that was slightly puffed (which was the effect formerly achieved by putting the iced cake back in the oven), but without any hint of discoloration from the heat. The practice allowed for the perfect whiteness of the sugar to be showcased.
The historical moment that the ‘traditional’, medieval-style festival cake received a covering of perfectly white icing represents the first time the wedding cake was adapted in order to retain relevance. While the spices, liquors and dried fruits inside the cake would have been enough to impress the previous era of wedding guests, the eighteenth century saw a decrease in the prices of these imported goods.32 Therefore, ‘distinction’ was performed by flaunting the labor used in the production of the cake. The “possessors of distinctive properties threatened with popularization” were forced to find a new way to
33 “assert their rarity,” and they did so with icing.
31 Raffald, Elizabeth. The Experienced English Housekeeper, Manchester, UK: J.Harrep.1769, 244 32 Mintz 1985, 95 33 Bourdieu 1984, 249 14
Social Climbing: Tiers in the Nineteenth Century
Figure 2. The addition of tiers
In the second half of the nineteenth century, a wedding cake of distinction was a cake covered with white icing and made as tall as possible. The whiteness of the icing, which had served as a performance of status in the previous era, now represented
‘tradition’. As the meaning of the color white had shifted to stand for purity in the
Victorian era, the whiteness of the cake was seen as an appropriate symbol of bridal
34 virginity.
The white cake was made fashionable by adding height (Fig. 2). Scholars of wedding cake history generally agree that this trend was triggered by a vertically-oriented
35 ornamental cake exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1851. The illustrated catalogue of the exhibition offers the following caption above an image of the confectionery wonder:
“Few of our readers who may not have seen the original of the annexed engraving will
36 have any idea from what it has been copied; it is, in fact, a CAKE.”
34 Charsley, Simon. “The Wedding Cake: History and Meanings”. Folklore. Vol. 99, No. 2 (1988) 35 Allen, Charsley, Bassett 36 The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue: The Industry of All Nations 1851, 81, emphasis in original 15
This caption is necessary, since the cake is presented alongside engravings of decorative marble carvings and other monumental works, and it is drawn without scale
(Fig. 3a). It certainly does not look edible- it looks like architecture, and is a great
37 representation of the “triumph of technology and ingenuity over matter.”
Figure 3a. (left) A page from the illustrated catalogue from the Industry of All Nations exhibition at the Crystal Palace- the ornamental cake is displayed in the upper right corner. Figure 3b. (right) Antonin Careme’s pieces montees.38
Enthusiasm for vertically-oriented, decorative food was a trend which had started in France earlier in the century. French chef Antonin Careme made a big splash with his celebrated pieces montees (Fig. 3b), large decorative centerpieces composed of edible material, which were often made in the form of buildings.39 Careme is famously quoted as saying “I believe architecture to be the first amongst the arts, and the principal branch
40 of architecture is confectionery.” He apparently took this role very seriously, and spent
37 Allen, Emily. “Culinary Exhibition: Victorian Wedding Cakes and Royal Spectacle”. Victorian Studies. Vol. 45, No. 3 (2003) 466 38 Image source: “Careme”. http://alacareme.tumblr.com/historyofcareme. Accessed 1/16/16 39 Krondl, Michael. Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2011.212 40 Ibid, 209. 16
a great deal of time copying architectural renderings and recreating them as plans for confectionary works.
In Victorian-era Britain, height and detail were instrumental components of fashionable architecture. With the Gothic Revival in full swing, one contemporary noted that all buildings of the period fell into one of two categories: “one characterized by an exceeding preciousness and delicacy…and the other by a severe, and, in many cases
41 mysterious, majesty, which we remember with an undiminished awe.”
This ‘awe’ was precisely what was meant to be felt by those who looked upon the royal wedding cakes of the mid-nineteenth century. The first of these cakes (Fig. 5), which was prepared for the marriage of Princess Vicky in 1858, measured between six
42 and seven feet in height.
Figure 5. Wedding cake prepared for Princess Vicky (1858).43
41 Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. New York: Wiley, 1849, 57 42 Allen, Emily. “Culinary Exhibition: Victorian Wedding Cakes and Royal Spectacle.” Victorian Studies. Vol. 45, No. 3 (2003) 43 Image from Allen 2003 17
As these royal wedding cakes were highly publicized, they quickly influenced the appearance of wedding cakes for ordinary citizens as well. While the elaborate architectural effect was financially out of reach for most people, the ‘fashionable upward momentum’ was achieved in other ways, such as placing a vase of fresh flowers on top of
44 the cake. Cakes were also stacked on top of each other to create height, and decorative elements were added with the recently invented piping bag.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, even more height was achieved when it was discovered that the tiers of the cake could be separated with columns. As the cakes became more sculptural and increasingly seemed to defy the laws of physics, the more structural integrity was required from the materials used to make the cake. This resulted in behavioral changes surrounding the cutting of the cake. As the cake itself became harder to cut (since by then it was covered with several layers of hard royal icing), the bride often required help making the initial incision. It thereafter became customary for
45 the bridal couple to cut the cake together.
The covering of white icing was now the component of the wedding cake that represented ‘tradition’, a status that only became more entrenched as the symbolic meaning of the color white changed, and therefore became associated with ‘traditional’ values.
The height and elaborate architectural appearance of the royal wedding cakes
44 Bassett, Donald. “Victorian Cakes and Architecture.” The British Art Journal Vol. XI, No. 2 (2010), 78 45 Charsley 1992, 240. Also see Bezner 1996, 25. The ’cutting of the cake’ has since become a staple of wedding photography; it is considered part of a ‘series of tests’, which affirm the new status of the married couple. 18
performed status by creating a feeling of ‘awe’. The edible materials rendered to look like inedible works of art speak to the desire to showcase the power of man over nature, which points to commodity fetishism.
For the ordinary people who attempted to mimic this effect by stacking cakes on top of each other, distinction was attempted through pretension. The effort to possess distinction, “albeit in the illusory form of bluff or imitation,” represents the recognition of
46 distinctive properties, which in this case could only be achieved by adding tiers.
st Cake in Name Only: ‘Alternatives’ at the Turn of the 21 Century
Figure 6. The cake is replaced
In twenty-first century America, the wedding cake of distinction is an ‘alternative’ wedding cake, defined as a decorative stack of small desserts or other foodstuff (Fig. 6).
‘Tradition’ is performed through the tiered silhouette of the stack, and through the ceremonial ‘cutting’ of the ‘cake’. It is interesting to note that these two factors represent
46 Bourdieu 1984, 249 19
tradition together, since there was a cause and effect quality that linked them in the previous era in the effort to add height.
The ‘cake’ has been updated to be fashionable and modern by replacing the cake itself with something else entirely. This is an effort to make the experience more
‘personal’ and to reflect the uniqueness of the couple.
A patent for a “Multi-level stand, in particular multi-layer cakes,” published in
1985 (Fig. 7), shows that the cost of ‘traditional’ wedding cakes had become a problem in need of a solution. “There is still a strong demand for multi-layer cakes at weddings…
[but] the workmanship required to produce such cakes is becoming out of reach to many eventual purchasers”; the invention promised a ‘wedding cake presentation’ at a lower
47 cost.
47 Lebecque, Maurice. Multi-level stand, in particular multi-layer cakes. US Patent 4539914 A. Filed on Sept. 27 1982, and issued on Sept. 10 1985. 20
Figure 7. Image from US Patent 4539914 A
By the late 1990’s, possibly in connection to the ‘cupcake craze’ and the mania it
48 induced in American women, displays of cupcakes became a popular choice.
49 Contemporary wedding planning guides enthused about the ‘hot new trend’, and fashion columns of the time refer to other ‘offbeat alternatives’ such as stacks of Krispy Kreme
50 donuts (Fig. 8a).
48 Nathanson, Elizabeth. “Sweet Sisterhood: Cupcakes as Sites of Feminized Consumption and Production.” In Cupcakes, Pinterest, and Ladyporn: Feminized Popular Culture in the Early Twenty-First Century, ed. Elana Levin. Chicago: University of Illionois Press, 2015. 49 Van der meer, Antonia. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creative Weddings. New York: Alpha Books, 1999, 239 50 Tien, Ellen. “Pulse: At a Wedding, Calories Don’t Count.” New York Times (New York, NY), June 2, 2002. 21
An online search for ‘wedding cake alternatives’ also yielded many examples of couples using tiered displays of rice crispy treats, macrons, whoopee pies, and even wheels of cheese [Fig 8b]. Although money would most likely be saved with the use of these ‘alternatives’, it is not usually the reason given for their use. Instead, creativity is generally the goal.
Figure 8a. (left) a Krispy Kreme ‘wedding cake’51;Figure 8b. (right) a cheese ‘wedding cake.52
In an article titled “10 Expert Tips to Create the Perfect Cheese Wheel Wedding
Cake” from the wedding site Bridal Musings, saving money is not mentioned once. “Cheese can add a refined yet rustic foodie feel to your wedding. Adorned in grapes and figs or berries and flowers, cheese wheels make a quirky alternative to your wedding
53 cake.” An article on the popular site Brides.Com entitled “49 Alternatives to the Classic Wedding Cake” poses the question “why settle for a classic white confection when your
51 Image source: http://www.krispykreme.co.uk/blog/a-wonderful-wedding-tower. Accessed 1/16/16. 52 Image source: http://www.polkadotbride.com/2010/10/kylie-and-chris/. Accessed 1/16/16 53 “10 Expert Tips to Create the Perfect Cheese Wheel Wedding Cake” Bridal Musings June 9, 2014 http://bridalmusings.com/2014/06/cheese-wheel-wedding-cake/ 22
54 wedding day is an event that should be uniquely yours?”
A ‘unique’ alternative wedding cake is used to prove distinction through a display of ‘cultural capital’, Bourdieu’s term for non-economic resources that can be converted into power. The couple who choose to substitute a stack of cheese for a wedding cake are displaying individualistic ‘freedom of thought’, cultural knowledge, and intelligence.
Contemporary American individualism has a contradictory quality of championing the autonomous individual while also placing a high value on commitment
55 to community. This may partially explain why the ‘tradition’ continues to be performed, even when the food generally used for such a tradition is switched out for something else entirely.
The act of using a different food to play the part of a wedding cake points to commodity fetishism, but it gets there in a backwards fashion. Presenting a large stack of a mundane food (such as donuts) as a ‘wedding cake’ has a way of elevating that food and making it seem more valuable. The concept of a ‘wedding cake’ has such a large quantity of intrinsic value built into it, simply putting a different food into that context is enough to make it worthy of the moniker.
Fake Wedding Cakes
Thus far, this paper has explored themes that contribute to the performance of distinction when it is expressed through wedding cake. The themes of commodity
54 Riello, Gabriella. “49 Alternatives to the Classic Wedding Cake” Brides. http://www.brides.com/wedding-ideas/wedding-cakes/2014/07/unique-wedding-cakes#slide=1 55 Fischer, Claude. “Paradoxes of American Individualism.” Sociological Forum 23, no. 2 (2008): 369 23
fetishism and ‘congealed precedent’ have been examined in three distinct periods of change over the course of wedding cake history. The fluidity with which these themes have been expressed over time showcases the complexity of what wedding cake has meant to previous generations and what it means in the contemporary era.
Wedding cake is an important touchstone deeply embedded in contemporary
Western culture. To offer further proof of this fact, in this section I will present findings from my brief investigation into the American fake cake industry. Following that will be a detailed account of the reaction to this industry by a mainstream television program, and a discussion of how it showcases cultural attitudes towards wedding cake in contemporary America.
The American Fake Cake Industry
In some ways, fake wedding cakes are nothing new. There are many accounts of the use of fake cakes in British weddings during World War II. As rationing law prohibited the making or selling of iced cakes, a small plain cake was often covered with
56 a multi-tiered cardboard dummy loaned out by the local bakery. Fake cakes were used in that period to promote a sense of normalcy during a chaotic and frightening time.
57 Fake wedding cakes have been popular in Japan since the 1930s. These cakes are usually composed of wax or rubber, and are used as a prop for photographs. There is no attempt to disguise the fact that the cake is fake, and in fact special effects such as fog
56 Longmate, Norman. “The Cardboard Wedding Cake” How We Lived Then. London: Random House, 2010 57 Edwards, Walter. “Something Borrowed: Wedding Cakes as Symbols in Modern Japan”. American Ethnologist. Vol. 9, No. 1 (2006) 24
machines are sometimes incorporated for maximum drama in the moment that the ‘cake’
58 is ‘cut’.
This is not the case with fake cakes produced in contemporary America.
Marketed as a cost-effective way to have the ‘wedding cake of your dreams’, a fake cake is used to display distinction through ‘bluffing’. As the American fake cake industry is a very small niche, there are no available statistics or official studies of any kind, and it is therefore necessary to rely on the experiences of those in the trade for information. I conducted interviews with several producers of fake cakes, as well as other wedding professionals, for insight. These interviews were fairly short, generally lasting no longer than twenty minutes, and were conducted via phone (with the exception of Ellen, who I interviewed in person). The interviews were not recorded, but I did take detailed notes.
In the making of a fake cake, foam ‘cake layers’ are stacked into a tiered formation and decorated. Often the foam is covered with fondant icing (an edible, clay-like substance), and then decorative work is applied to the outside. For those who prefer the appearance of butter cream frosting, a replica icing product (probably similar to joint compound) known as ‘Perma-Ice’ is available through specialty retailers online
59 (Fig. 9).
58 Jerry Dunn, Jr. “Japanese Extravaganzas” Islands Magazine Vol 12 Number 3 June 1992 p 145 59 ”Magic Line Perma Ice” Global Sugar Art http://www.globalsugarart.com/magic-line-perma-ice-c-1103_1110.html 25
Figure 9. ‘Perma Ice’ and foam ‘dummy’ cake layers.60
The use of a fake cake is the culinary equivalent of the old magic trick in which a woman gets ‘sawed in half’. Often there is a wedge left open in the back of the foam
‘cake’ where a piece of real cake is placed. During the wedding reception, the couple is then still able to cut the ‘cake’ in front of their guests and take pictures. Afterwards the fake cake is brought back to the kitchen and switched out for slices of sheet cake that are decorated to match.
This illusion is dependent on small details—for example, one informant mentioned that she would always talk to the caterer to make sure the person carrying the
61 fake cake acted like it was really heavy. I had hoped to somehow witness the phenomenon of this ‘switch’ in person, but it proved impossible. When asked if such a viewing opportunity could be arranged, another informant replied, “there’s nothing to
62 see—the fake cake goes right in the trash.”
When asked about the motivations bridal couples have when opting for a fake
60 Image source: http://www.globalsugarart.com. Accessed 1/16/16 61 Ellen 10/9/15 62 Alicia 10/6/15 26
cake, everyone I spoke to cited saving money as the primary reason that customers use their products. One informant said that “people need choices—not everyone can buy a
63 house, many people rent. The same should go for wedding cakes.” Another informant related the story of two sisters who were both married in the same summer. To help them out with their wedding expenses, their aunt bought a fake wedding cake, which they both used in turn. When asked why, in a situation like that, plainer, more affordable cakes weren‘t chosen instead, she responded, “my customers don’t want a plain cake…they
64 deserve a beautiful wedding cake.”
The sentiment that bridal couples ‘deserve’ an elaborate wedding cake shows how important wedding cakes are in contemporary society. The evolutionary patterns that allow for a fake cake to stand in for a ‘traditional’ wedding cake are identical to the patterns that have allowed for a stack of donuts to do the same.
The value intrinsic to the concept of a ‘wedding cake’ allows anything placed in that context to become elevated in value. When using a fake cake, however, ‘distinction’ is achieved through ‘bluffing’. A bluff is “one of the few ways of escaping the limits of social condition by playing on the relative autonomy of the symbolic… and to win for it
65 the acceptance and recognition which make it a legitimate, objective representation.”
If the performance of tradition requires an elaborate cake, a plain cake will not serve as a reasonable replacement. In the case that economic reality causes elaborate cakes to become financially out of reach, the wedding cake once again has had to change
63 Kimberly 7/16/15 64 Liz 7/16/15 65 Bourdieu 1984, 250 27
in order to survive. This time, the component that changed is the edibility of the cake itself.
Mainstream Reaction to Fake Wedding Cake
Shark Tank is an iconic television show that allows aspiring entrepreneurs to make presentations to a panel of shrewd venture capitalists in the hope of landing investment. In October 2014, the show featured a pitch by the Michigan-based company
66 FunCakes Rental. As this excerpt from mainstream, reality-style television offers a
‘text’ that showcases contemporary American attitudes towards the fake cake industry, I will now provide a detailed description of what happened during this segment.
The scene opens up with mother and son team Kimberly and Koray Aya walking onto the dramatically-lit set, arm in arm and dressed in brightly colored chef coats. After briefly introducing themselves, Kimberly starts the pitch. “We believe that every bride deserves to have a gorgeous cake at her wedding, but those sky-high tiers, intricate designs, and sugar flowers, all come at a steep cost.” The camera pans to a table set with several colorful, multi-tiered cakes. “The price of weddings has gotten out of hand, especially in today’s economy, so brides on a budget come to us because we deliver it all, but at only a slice of the price.”67
Her son Koray, after announcing that their product is “sugar free, gluten free, lactose free, and has a shelf life of seven plus years,” demonstrates how that is possible
66 “FunCakes Rental.” Shark Tank. Prod. Mark Burnett. Season 6, Ep. 4 (Oct. 10, 2014). ABC 67 Ibid 28
by grabbing a cake from the table and dramatically flipping it upside down. Grinning, he proclaims: “Our cakes are made out of foam.”68
FunCakes offers fake wedding cakes in a variety of styles. The cakes are rented online, and they are shipped to the customer the week before the wedding. A few days after the wedding, they are repacked and shipped back. The company’s website displays
69 the trademarked line “Real or Not, who will know?” prominently on the home page.
At the conclusion of their pitch, Koray makes the following statement about the mission of their company: “We see this as the future of the wedding cake. We hope to keep the tradition of the wedding cake alive, but at a price that couples can afford.” This is followed by Kimberly’s enthusiastic line, “our cakes may be fake but our money is
70 real.”
The pitch by FunCakes was completely unsuccessful; one at a time, each of the
‘Sharks’ rejected the opportunity to invest in the company. Of the five on the panel, Lori
Greiner (the ‘queen of QVC’) and Kevin O’Leary (‘Mr. Wonderful’) both cited symbolic problems with the concept of a fake wedding cake as their primary reason for declining.
Lori Greiner was the first to speak, saying “at my wedding, I don’t want my
71 ‘something borrowed’ to be my cake.” By using a line from a traditional rhyme associated with marriage (which states that for good luck, every bride should wear
“something old/something new/something borrowed/and something blue”), Greiner suggests that using a fake cake is bad luck.
68 Ibid 69 “Home Page.” Cake Rental by FunCakes. http://funcakes-llc.myshopify.com. Accessed 1/16/16 70 “FunCakes Rental.” Shark Tank. Prod. Mark Burnett. Season 6, Ep. 4 (Oct. 10, 2014). ABC 71 Ibid 29
This sentiment was echoed by Kevin O’Leary. In his statement to Kimberly and
Koray he identifies the main issue with the business as a symbolic one.
People who are getting married, hoping to stay in love for an extended period of time, don’t want a fake cake. What this does is it actually causes divorce- that’s what I think. I think when you tell your bride, or vice-versa, ‘Honey, this cake is fake, just like our love’. That’s why this isn’t working, that’s why people are not renting these fake cakes- because 72 you are against love.
Since a bad ‘mystical quality’ is attributed to the fake cakes by both Greiner and
O’Leary, it follows that real wedding cake is imbued with ‘good luck’. This speaks to congealed precedent and the ‘intrinsic value’ that it imbues. Considering the ‘tough mogul’ reputation these investors promote, it is especially striking that two of them would invoke such conceptual, unquantifiable reasons for dismissing FunCakes.
Fellow ‘shark’ Barbara Corcoran ultimately cited ‘normal’ business reasons for opting out of FunCakes. Her reasons for not investing in fake cake differed from those of her colleagues, however, and also demand unpacking. At the beginning of her statement,
73 she said, “I happen to think this idea is brilliant, and needed, by the way.” The idea that a fake cake rental business is ‘needed’ speaks to the same line of thinking that claims that everyone ‘deserves’ an elaborate cake. This logic showcases the idea that, even if it is not financially viable, tradition must persist. FunCakes would not be ‘needed’ if a plain, everyday cake could be substituted for a highly decorative one. In that context, a rentable fake foam cake is seen as a reasonable ‘solution’ to the problem of couples being unable to afford the elaborate cake that they must have in order to perform tradition. Corcoran’s
72 Ibid 73 Ibid 30
comment offers a different perspective on fake cake, and recasts it as merely a practical solution to an existing problem.
It is worth noting that in the making of Shark Tank, hour-long presentations are 74 spliced together to create dramatic ten-minute segments. The fact that the producers chose to edit it down to these particular moments just further exemplifies the reaction of the American public to the existence of a fake cake. More specifically, it is the symbolism of the fake cake that is the problem—guests at a wedding that happened to feature a fake cake would most likely not realize they were being duped, and would probably comment on its impressiveness. The trouble with a fake cake is in the knowing.
The Implications of Fake Cake
At this point it should be confirmed that fake cakes are absolutely convincing.
They look real, a circumstance made possible only by the fact that wedding cakes
(excluding ‘alternative’ wedding cakes) have evolved into a food that no longer looks like a food.
This brings us back that scholar from Mars referenced by Douglas in the introduction.75 While the alien anthropologist might wonder whether the focus of the ceremony is marriage or cake, I rather think the more interesting question is whether or not he would recognize the cake as something edible.
74 Shontell, Alyson. “23-Year-Old Turns Down Big Money from Mark Cuban”. Business Insider Online. Pub. Sept. 21, 2012. http://www.businessinsider.com/23-year-old-turns-down-big-money-from-mark-cuban-2012-9. Accessed 12/9/15 75 Douglas 1982, 105 31
Figure 10a (left) a fake cake76; Figure 10b (right) a real cake77
The figures above both show examples of what could be considered relatively
‘classic’ wedding cakes. While one of these is fake (Fig. 10a) and one is real (Fig. 10b), it is only through cultural indoctrination that either of them look like food. Between the glossy white surface and the decorative elements, they could be composed of porcelain.
“In most of the applied arts there is a tension between the requirements of
78 functions and the requirements of design.” Decorative food is no exception—there is a
79 ‘tension’ between its status as practical nourishment and its use as an aesthetic medium.
This is a concept well illustrated by the existence of fondant icing, which is an edible compound that can be sculpted into any form, but tastes terrible. According to an informant who is in the business of making fake cakes, this is another problem solved by using a fake cake. “If you truly want that smooth look of fondant, it makes more sense to
76 Image source: http://www.fabulousandfauxweddingcakes.com. Accessed 1/16/16 77 Image source: http://www.marthastewartweddings.com . Accessed 1/16/16 78 Douglas 1982, 107 79 Ibid 106 32
80 put it on a piece of foam than on a real cake. Most people just peel it off anyway.”
After hundreds of years of developing new ways to make cakes more impressive, more sophisticated, and more removed from nature, we have reached a new level in this quest. Apparently, there is a step beyond producing food that does not look like food; when the edible component is removed from a food that has been designed so it no longer looks like a food, what remains but the concept of that food?
A fake foam cake decorated with Perma-Ice is essentially a sculpture—a sculpture that is not a representation of a separate natural form, but serves as a stand-in for a foodstuff that has evolved over centuries. Those layers of inedible material are a physical manifestation of the pure theories themselves—they are only status performance and congealed precedent and absolutely nothing else.
The potential acceptance and rejection of the concept of a fake wedding cake both demonstrate the importance of wedding cake in contemporary American culture. The adoption of a fake cake shows an admission of necessity; it is a “recognition of
81 distinction that is affirmed in the effort to possess it.” The dismissal of a fake cake likewise points to the gravity of the sentimental content of the practice. It is an attempt to
82 “wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it.”
The very existence of fake wedding cake exposes a nerve in American culture. It proves that this ‘tradition’ is about much more than eating sweets. While the burgeoning field of food studies has had its share of skeptics who are dismissive of a discipline that deals with the ‘trivial’ matters of the everyday, fake wedding cake is a subject that cannot
80 Liz 7/16/15 81 Bourdieu 1984, 249 82 Benjamin 1968, 255 33
be so easily brushed away. Since it cannot be eaten, it definitively cannot be written off as ‘just dessert’.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have demonstrated the continued importance of wedding cake in
Western culture. I have identified it as a functioning site for the performance of status as well as tradition. As for the question of how this foodstuff has survived for so long, I offer the explanation of flexibility.
The wedding cake is perpetually old-fashioned, forever being brought ‘up to date’, but never abandoned completely. For this reason, the suggestion that ‘marooning’ is responsible for its survival is inadequate. ‘Meaning’ has not been created for the wedding cake because of a loss of historic context. Rather, the meaning has remained the same, but simply become attached to different characteristics as the historic context shifted.
Likewise, the assertion that wedding cake is merely an elevated version of common daily food is mistaken. While food is always expressive in nature, the daily habits of food preparation and consumption are highly specific to the individual, and the meanings that are attached to those habits vary a great deal from person to person.
In contrast, although wedding cakes are often personalized, they always perform distinction via congealed precedent and commodity fetishism. As we have seen, in each historic era that has been highlighted in this study, characteristics of the wedding cake have variously been used to perform both functions. Specifically, characteristics that
34
demonstrate prestige in one era are generally held over into the next era in order to honor
‘tradition’.
This daisy-chain of transfers in context has created a system that holds fluidity as its core strength. In this way, the concept of ‘wedding cake’ is a shape-shifting vessel that consistently holds the same meanings and yet is constantly changing in appearance.
Although we refer to it as an autonomous foodstuff that has survived for centuries, it is in fact a complex integration of shifting aesthetics that manages to maintain functionality, and thus creates an illusion of constancy.
Although wedding cake is classified as food, it is clearly in a separate sphere from everyday cuisine and also from luxury foods. In the liminal space of weddings, this dream-like object has evolved on its own schedule, vulnerable to changes in fashion and yet forever pointing to the past.
Examining the daily practices of food consumption and preparation remains an important key to gaining knowledge about people everywhere. However, finding context for the foods that lie beyond those parameters provides an opportunity for an additional layer of cultural understanding and invites further research. Unpacking the conceptual make-up of the exceptional can only further strengthen our understanding of the familiar.
35
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