Tea at Trianon: The Ancient Greek Tradition of Birthday Cake

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 1, 2024

The Ancient Greek Tradition of Birthday Cake

From Greek Reporter:

The global tradition of blowing out candles which adorn a birthday cake to be shared with well-wishers might be rooted in an ancient Greek votive ritual to honor the goddess Artemis, the female archetype associated with childbirth, wildlife, and the moon.

The Ancient Greeks started making cakes that were modeled after the moon as tribute to Artemis, the goddess of the moon. The cakes were circular and then lit with candles to shine like the moon, notes Columbia Daily. Tradition tells us that a long-lost connection with devotional cakes to Artemis may survive today as part of the most popular celebratory habit in the Western world and beyond. (Read more.)