Valerie is a retired teacher. She sat next to me and practiced singing. She has the most pleasant cooking personality and always has something interesting to share. Last night, we were discussing the difference between American cake and English cake, which made her start talking about where she came from for a traditional wedding. You know, the traditional English cake is not a sponge cake like the American cake, but a fruit cake with a strong soft candy or almond frosting. The wedding cake is still made of fruitcake. )
Valerie grew up in a coal mine in Durham, a community of miners, usually adjacent to coal mines. They are a very United community, and everyone is helping others. Before the middle of the 20th century, most areas in Northeast China were made up of coal mines. Valerie shared this fascinating story about the coal mine wedding, and I will try my best to connect it with you. Bimish Museum 19 13 Durham Coal Mine
For example. You can see the mine behind. On the far left is the coal mine house, and on the right are community buildings such as churches.
Traditionally, wedding banquets are held in church halls in coal mines. In traditional coal mine weddings, the bride's mother usually prepares all the food for all the guests. Unlike most modern or more upscale weddings, the caterer usually prepares food for the wedding. Not only can she cook all the dishes, but the guest list of one of the activities is usually around 200 to 300 people!
Because the mother of the bride cooks for 300 people, all the neighbors throw balls in it and play the role of waitresses. All the women next door will wear the "best down jacket" or apron to serve the guests at the wedding. In addition, because the church hall usually doesn't have its own pottery or tableware, neighbors will lend their own daily utensils. At that time, everyone had similar tableware, usually with bone handles and metal utensils at the top. In order to distinguish whose tableware belongs to whom, each neighbor will stick a piece of cotton with different colors on his tableware handle, so as to return the appropriate tableware to the owner at the end of the evening.
There are usually not enough seats in the church hall for everyone to eat. Once, they usually set several long tables, and then the waiter in charge next door would ask the bride and groom to sit down, and then they would eat their meals. After eating, they will clean up, rearrange the table, and then invite friends and neighbors to take turns eating.
There is also a band, which consists of accordion, drum and piano. Everyone can dance.
It sounds like a happy wedding, but it is also like something coming from a small house on the grassland. What impressed me most about this story was that Valerie was in her sixties or early seventies, which often happened in her life. Until the middle of the 20th century, this kind of wedding was the standard in this area. This seems to be an interesting story several generations ago, but in fact it is a quite new practice.
There seem to be so many such stories that it is difficult for me to put them on what happened in the past 50 or 60 years. For example, in the past 30 years, I have heard my husband talk about using the bathroom outdoors. Besides, in the 1970s, men in this town often used ink holes in their desks to get tattoos when they went to school. If you come to this town, you will notice that many men in their forties and early fifties still have ordinary tattoos on their hands and arms and even on their faces. They tattooed ink holes on school desks.
This is not to say that this is a backward city, but some old practices are to die unsatisfied. Although new technologies and trends have appeared and been put into use, it seems that it will take decades for old technologies and trends to be eliminated.
Back to Valerie, of course, she will end her story about traditional wedding with a surprise. She also said: "You see, I am a bit snobbish, so I insist on eating three kitchen knives for about 60 people." Let Valerie break the traditional coal mine wedding mode and just seek the best! "
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