Looking past the aisle to the wedding menu
- May 12, 2008 6:42 PM |
- By Jessica Wong
by Jessica Wong, CBCNews.ca
Love 'em or hate 'em, high profile weddings can be fun water cooler fodder. I admit it: I got sucked in and clicked on this story after a handful of photos and a few details were officially released about Jenna Bush's wedding this weekend.
While some go gaga over a celebrity bride's dress, her ring or the picture-perfect setting, I usually skim right on down to specifics about the menu and the cake.
The guests reportedly had Texas BBQ — yum! — for lunch on Saturday. But, unfortunately for me, the veil of secrecy surrounding the wedding seems to extend to the details of the dinner enjoyed by the 200 guests (although one of the photos released looks like a plated app of a colourful salad layered in a ring mold).
A table setting is shown prior to the Bush-Hager wedding reception on Saturday at Prairie Chapel Ranch (Shealah Craighead/The White House/Associated Press).
One of my favourite famous wedding dinners was Bobby Flay's, detailed in an InStyle magazine a few years ago. The boyish, bombastic Food Network star enlisted fellow top chef Daniel Boulud to create a special feast for the big day.
Boulud came up with a four-course, his-and-hers menu: ginger-crusted langoustines, Dover sole rissolée, and rib eye and slow braised ribs for the ladies. For the gents, he offered smoked lobster with lentils and herbs, pancetta-wrapped tuna and Vermont squab stuffed with foie gras.
For a Slate wedding issue last year, Regina Schrambling deplored the wretched state of wedding food in an article that sparked chatter online. While I haven't dined on a wedding meal as extravagant as Flay's, I've been fairly lucky in avoiding the dreaded rubber chicken in recent years. I've been to receptions — including Indian, Italian, Greek and Canadian weddings — that featured great meals, not to mention the dozens of lovely Chinese wedding banquets I've attended.
What was the best wedding meal you've ever had? Do you find that couples are making food a more important focus of their nuptial celebrations?
About the Authors
- Elizabeth Bridge is a producer with CBC's Digital Archives project. She got her start in the kitchen baking brownies and making fudge but is still trying to get pastry right.
- Andrea Chiu
is an associate producer at CBC Radio Digital. Though she loves to eat, cook and discuss food,
don't ask her to bake. It never turns out well. She tweets as @TOfoodie on Twitter and organizes food and wine events in Toronto called FoodieMeet.
- Amber Hildebrandt
works for CBCNews.ca in Toronto. Growing up on a farm in Manitoba, she acquired an insatiable appetite, but it was during a stint in Japan that she developed her discerning tastebuds and foodie ways.
- Tara Kimura
is a multimedia producer for CBCNews.ca.
- Andree Lau
is a CBC web reporter in Calgary. Her journalism career includes seven years as a CBC-TV reporter. Her own blog called "are you gonna eat that?" chronicles her eating adventures (including sampling snake and camel hoof tendon).
- Jessica Wong
is a CBCNews.ca writer who loves to eat and cook, as well as discuss, read and watch programming about food, sometimes all at once.
- Kevin Yarr
, CBCNews.ca's writer in Prince Edward Island, wrote about food and beer for national and regional magazines before joining the CBC. He acquired a desire for new tastes on his first trip to Europe, and an appreciation of eating locally and in season when he finally settled down on P.E.I.
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Comments (2)
The best wedding meal I ever had? My own, of course! It was very important to me that guests at my wedding be able to enjoy what they were eating. It wasn't about how it looked, it was about how it tasted.
I had a local restaurant (not a chain) cater the exact same food they serve for many business meetings I ordered for at work. We had lasagna and barbecued chicken, it was simply delicious... and I managed not to spill any on my dress either!
Personally, I find that too much importance is placed on the prestige of the caterer and the appearance of the food. Who cares how expensive the food is... if it tastes like cardboard, that's what I'm going to remember.
Wedding dinners can be formulaic and boring! How many times have we had the well-done roast beef or rubber chicken? Some meals have been memorable, but more for the atmosphere, rather than the food, in my opinion.
So... for our wedding this past February, we decided to do an Hors D'ouevres menu! I think it was the best way for us to go, given our budget, since wedding dinners can be so expensive, and since my hubby loves to cook and create in the kitchen, really reflected his personality. Each of the "menu items" (picked by us, or created by my hubby) had a funny name, and a picture of us associated with it. For example, we called one recipe "Nutty Beets" and featured a pic of us making a silly face into the camera wearing something red. Another item was "Dr. Seuss Eggs" which were basically devilled eggs, but green and purple dyed. With this, a picture of us at Dr. Seuss Land at Universal Studios. Yet another was his mom's famous tourtiere bites, with a great picture of him and his mom together.
it made the food part of the celebration, not just something to keep people occupied during the reception. It was a hit, by the way, everyone raved!
We could not afford a sit down catered meal either, they can be so expensive! Also, because most of our guests travelled, it allowed a leisurely adfternoon for them, and not a lot of time commitment for them to make it a late night.
The day before, my hubby and his buddies were in the Hall kitchen making up procsuitto wrapped figs, goat cheese stuffed mushrooms, and dyeing boiled eggs purple with beet juice. Us ladies decorated the open spaces in the hall. It made it a family affair!
So memorable in a different way I suppose, but really awesome, in my books.
The only other food memory at a wedding that stands out for me is a campfire reception in the Yukon, where there was a roast on a spit, and a canoe full of ice and local brewed beer. :)