Mailing wedding cake.

[trekkiedane]

I'm watching an episode of Murder in Suburbia concerning a murder at a wedding reception.

Made me wonder about this tradition of mailing pieces of wedding cake... where does it come from? -what is the symbolism of it? -do people still do this in real life?

I've been trying to google it but pretty much only found bakery sites and this:

The English Post Office has always been supposed to be the best in the world. Now, however, it appears that, so far as carrying wedding cake safely is concerned, the English Post Office is eminently untrustworthy. Complaints have recently been made that when wedding cake is sent by mail it rarely reaches its destination, and it is generally supposed that it is appropriated and eaten by the Post Office clerks

Which is from 1894 (article here -with link to full article on PDF)

 

[trekkiedane]

Oops

That PDF-file actually had the answer to some of my questions:

I still would like to know if people do this today though!

 

[KimMH]

Oh those inscrutable Brits!

 

[tharpdevenport]

Over here regular USPS mail is not supposed to be used to ship food and I gurantee it will get damaged all day long.

Britush postal system is likely much akin to out, using box trucks and even planes to get mail around big distances. What cake doesn't arrive likely melted or the box got crushed, and it oozed out or stained the package, setting off alarms about possible dangerous substances, and your package probably caused a postal incident, and your name now on a super secret spy list.

 

[trekkiedane]

^Yeah, some on-line articles about wedding cake actually warns about putting it in the mail.

 

[trampledamage]

Bear in mind that the wedding cake being posted would be a hefty fruit cake, not a delicately iced affair. The tradition was also to keep the top layer of your cake as a Christening cake for your first child.

Hadn't ever heard of a tradition of sending poisoned cake to old boyfriends though

 

[propita]

My Dad always said that his mother would send cake to his brother during WW2--and it always arrived intact. Of course, she made the heavy-and-solid-as-a-brick cake baked in a can. Something about it being a particular European-style cake that was insanely dense yet still edible.

So some cakes could survive the mails.