Of Cakes and Courtship

Cakes are staple for many occasions like birthdays, dinner parties, and weddings. Actually, we don’t need a special occasion to eat cake. You can buy a slice of cake at just about any bakeshop and take it home with you. A miniature dessert cake is also a sweet token after a Valentine’s dinner for two. There was a time in ancient Irish Celtic history when the process of baking a cake was linked to courtship.

A long time ago in Ireland, many young single people found their spouses in a tradition called Bilberry Sunday. It was once a popular food festival and courtship tradition in Ireland. The exact beginnings of Bilberry Sunday are somewhat unclear because the custom died out before the 20th century. So, many Irish people don’t really know how this custom started. Some young Irish adults today don’t even know the tradition ever existed.

Centuries ago, groups of young men and women set off to the Irish hills in search of bilberries for their annual food festival. The ideal harvest time for bilberries is in the middle of summer around the latter part of July till the first weeks of August. Traditionally, they would be sent out by their parents on the last Sunday of July. Bilberries are tiny versions of blueberries that grow in thick shrubs. This made the hunting for bilberries tedious and time consuming.

The young men and women would spend more than half the day collecting enough bilberries for the town’s food festival. This gave them a lot of time away from prying eyes of parents to get to know each other better. The single men took this opportunity to court the girl of his dreams. After harvesting the bilberries, they would return to town and all the women would begin cooking and baking food for the festival.

The bilberries were often turned into cakes, pies, jam, tarts, and wine. If any of the single women fancied one of the boys from the earlier bilberry expedition, she would bake a bilberry cake for him. She would give it to him that evening during the height of the festival when everyone would be dancing, eating, and drinking. Many Irish couples back then, found their lifelong partners this way.

This charming Celtic tradition of cakes and courtship is now going through a revival. Cultural conservation groups have brought back the Bilberry Sunday tradition and are sponsoring bilberry hunting expeditions with children and young adults. To maintain the custom, the volunteers take the youngsters to the Irish hills on the last Sunday of July. The resumption of the Bilberry Sunday tradition began a few years ago and is a popular annual event with the Irish people once more.