Engaged...German Style: Customs in various places

» biogardener - Customs in various places

I well remember, right after World War II, living in Bredelem, a small village at the northern edge of the Harz Mountains in Lower Saxony. The evening before one of the farmers' daughters got married, every child in the village would find an old piece of pottery somewhere to throw into the farmyard and then wait for the mother of the bride to give us each a piece of cake. In those days when every bit of food was rationed, only farmers had the ingredients to be able to bake cake, so that was the only cake we would get to taste until another farmer's daughter got married, and unfortunately, there weren't enough of them around to please us.

Those pieces of broken pottery got recycled frequently. We would all make sure to take a piece back with us ready for the next Polterabend. Even old pottery was hard to come by in those days.

-- posted by biogardener