The wedding banquet

The wedding banquet was, in all ages and from all classes, an important occasion in which the festive purely culinary reasons they intertwine and other culinary had very little: ostentation of power and wealth, or social statement effort, ritual and symbolic elements related to the wedding itself.
Still, more than you think, sitting at the table during a lunch wedding will take part in a ritual. Obviously, some data are more evident in other eras when the differences between the various classes were much more marked: in addition to wedding banquets for between royal families to demonstrate power and wealth but at the same time passion for unbridled luxury, we find examples of wedding among farmers that seal their pact with wedding banquets far more modest and far from pomp and luxury.
In any case, despite pomp and luxury are typical of all ages, the triumph of scenic wedding lunch was one that was held in 1600 in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence for the marriage of Maria de Medici and King Henry IV of France, which remained in story especially for theatrical wonders devised by the famous architect Buontalenti, and the statues of sugar modeled by Giambologna. It seems that after the fruit, calarono from the ceiling clouds swollen with Juno and Minerva, and their dileguarsi tables were changed with a view mirrors and crystals, which in turn is transformed into valleys with trees, hedges and fountains.
In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance eras in which allegories and symbolism made by the owners in every moment of human life, dating back many of the customs observed today during the wedding lunch.
In addition to the number of convitati, which must never be odd, it is very important the presence of sweets and sugar, the current confetti, as a symbol of a sweet and happy future. Nor may miss some fruits such as apple, the symbol of the dedication of the bride, and the pomegranate, symbol of fertility.
Must be on the table even spicy foods and aphrodisiac for bringing about the physical act of the union. In all eras, and within the limits of their means, as we have said before, even the middle class and the classes have given great importance to wedding banquets.
Famous, for example, the popular Italian tradition, the so-called "Panarde" Abruzzese, devoted to literature by Edoardo Scarfoglio and held in the same way today. In turn, small middle class and wealthy nobility of toga and trade, not joking. One need only recall the banquet held in Verzago in 1569 for the wedding of Hippolyta Dugnani with Count Ottavio Giovio, during which they were served five ports respectively 145, 105, 105, 140 and 110 meals each.


The wedding lunch in the folk tradition.

The culmination of the feast is reached over lunch on weekdays, it takes many hours, with quantity and variety of food truly exceptional, even among the poor.
In some regions the bride and groom eat the same dish. In Basilicata and Abruzzo, it is customary to give diners that offers cash and gold objects to the bride and groom.
In the Tiber Valley, during lunch, is traditionally launched with confetti violence to break some glass: the port wine spread joy, the break of a few dishes and clearly alluding.
Similar traditions are found in other regions.
After the festival, weddings, especially in the countryside, do not start, but recede to spend the first night and retain young people under the window to make the serenade.
In some conservative areas, some friends of the bride and groom during the festival, prepare some joke, for example: the double bed with the sheets annodate, or some household tools hidden in the bed itself.
According uses of Basilicata and Sicily, the morning after the wedding, the mother of the groom, or both mothers visiting spouses, offer them lunch, and build the bed to see signs that the alliance and have proof of virginity the bride, for the first eight days the new spouses remain at home, served by family members and board room. At one time, in Romagna, (and in a wide beyond the Alps), after eight days, the bride returned for another eight days in the house