THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CHRISTMAS CAKES

Abstract

Like ceramic pots excavated by archaeologists, dishes, for which recipes provide detailed instructions, also can be treated as a form of material culture and analyzed to reveal the socioeconomic conditions prevailing when they were made. The Christmas Cake that originated in Victorian England from a long-standing tradition of rich fruit cakes became an important and persistent category in twentieth century New Zealand. As a complex cake with many ingredients, it could be adjusted to suit household composition and incomes, variations in price and availability of components, and changing roles of women. A study of 383 Christmas Cake recipes from 158 community cookbooks published in New Zealand between 1901 and 1980 revealed that for a “traditional” cake, the Christmas Cake was remarkably sensitive to socioeconomic trends. The method of microanalysis developed here should be applicable to many other recipe types with long, sequential histories.