• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Eleni Gage

Author, Journalist, Pop Folklorist

  • About
  • Books
    • Lucky In Love
    • The Ladies of Managua
    • Other Waters
    • North of Ithaka
  • Blog
  • Articles
    • Travel
    • Essays and Reviews
    • Lifestyle
  • Talks
    • Book Clubs
  • Contact

Love Snacks

March 15, 2011 by admin |

The (non-edible) caketopper for the Colombian/Brazilian wedding we attended in Cartagena.

Shakespeare wrote that music may be the food of love. Assuming he really existed as one person, he was smart and prolific, so I’m sure he knows whereof he speaks. But I’d like to make a case for actual food being what nourishes love, especially in its liminal stages. I’m not talking about aphrodisiacs, foods such as oysters that are said to promote passionate feelings. I mean foods designed to ensure long-lasting love. And with a divorce rate that’s 50/50 for the marrying population in general (I’ve read that the rate of divorce goes down if your first marriage takes place later in life rather than earlier), we need all the sweet and delicious insurance policies we can get.

Eating loukoumades (what you see in the pitcher is iced tea).

When Emilio and I announced our engagement last June, my aunts came over for loukoumades, fried dough balls dipped in honey, which they ate in the hopes that our life together would be sweet (so far, so good). No coffee was served, due to coffee’s bitterness, even though Emilio is a coffee trader by profession. We didn’t want to tempt fate.

Our boubouniere.

At our wedding, and at all Greek Orthodox weddings (and also several Italian Catholic weddings, and perhaps elsewhere, you tell me), guests received bonbonnieres, favors (in our case, handkerchiefs embroidered with our logo, two intertwined Es) filled with koufeta, Jordan almonds. Symbols of fertility, the sugar-covered almonds are both bitter and sweet, like life itself, with the sweetness of the coating outweighing the bitter tang of the almonds.

Our decorated bed.

Jordan almonds and rice (again, fertility), were also thrown on the bed on which we were to spend our wedding night, two days before the nuptials, during our ritual bed-making ceremony. (People threw money too, but we pocketed that quickly and left the rice, Jordan almonds, and rose petals on the bed until the wedding night; the hotel housekeepers, familiar with the tradition, did not disturb it at all.)

My bem casado.

But it’s not just Greeks who love an excuse to eat treats, and who embrace any attempt to make life sweeter. This past weekend I attended a gorgeous wedding in the equally gorgeous city of Cartagena, Colombia. The bride is Colombian and the groom is Brazilian, and they followed the Brazilian tradition of having “bem casados” on the dessert table. These are Brazilian whoopie pies, two pieces of vanilla cake/cookies with dulce de leche in between. Their name means “well-married”, or, to smooth the translation, “happily married”. They’re wrapped up to resemble a little gift to the guests, but by eating them, I like to think we’re all doing our part, adding to the wishes that the newlyweds will have a wonderful life together. It’s a highly delicious form of altruism.

Filed Under: cultural beliefs, Food, superstitions, travel Tagged With: amulets, love, weddings

Primary Sidebar

Get lucky!

Subscribe to my blog,
theliminalstage for
updates, articles, and
auspicious rituals.

Eleni Gage

About Eleni

The daughter of a Greek father and a Minnesotan mother. I grew up in Athens, Greece, and the suburbs of Worcester, Massachusetts—
and became obsessed with cultural rituals and traditions along the way.

read more

Lucky in Love

is a guide to planning a wedding that’s unique, meaningful, and, above all, auspicious, with the help of customs from all over the world

Buy Now

Latest Blog Posts

Memories, Mansplaining, and the Bestseller I Never Wrote

A couple of weeks ago I woke up thinking about a man who is not my husband. He's someone I went out with over a decade ago and there was no reason he ...

Read more about Memories, Mansplaining, and the Bestseller I Never Wrote

Young Love: Spellbound by Syros

The challenge of travel, for me, is time. My nostalgia vein runs deep, so I constantly want to return to the places I love, and when I'm there, I ...

Read more about Young Love: Spellbound by Syros

Footer

Travel Writing

I love covering places that inspire me—from Greece to Nicaragua and everywhere in between—for outlets such as Travel+Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, InStyle and more. Join me on my trips here.

 

Essays and Reviews

From parenting to politics to pop culture, I’ve got opinions —and I’m not afraid to share them in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Learn why I’m a bad mom here.

Lifestyle Articles

I may not always live my best life, but I’m trying to live a better one! I enjoy learning from the experts when writing about everything from reading more to wasting less. Pick up some tips here.

Copyright © 2023 Eleni Gage. All Rights Reserved.