Sweet Baby Shower Facts
Strange sugary customs at birth parties around the world
Baby showers logically bring to mind the sweetest of dishes, but regarding those there are some strange customs out there!
Baby showers abound with sweets: cakes, a sustaining but sugary porridge, and noisy candy, sugar beans… It makes sense: newborn babies universally bring to mind sweetness. Unfortunately, they also bring to mind diapers, and some cultures can’t help but have fun with that.
- In Georgia (the country, formerly of the Soviet Union), women cook a sweet wheat or corn flour porridge for the new mother, the midwife and all the other women who were present at the birth. For some reason this custom is called “treating the knee” (source: Marika Mikkor).
- In some rural areas in the north of Iran, family members would visit on the tenth day after the birth and have lunch with the mother and new baby. After the meal, they put the baby in the cradle, along with some money, and then crack some sweets above the cradle and rattle them vigorously, making noise. The purpose is to accustom the child to the noise of the parents quarrelling! (source: Ahmad Shahvary)
- An Indian variant of the American baby shower game of guess-the-gender is a ritual called “pedha kaa barphi” (Hindi). Two covered bowls, one holding pedha, a sweet representing a baby boy, and another holding barphi, for a baby girl, are presented to the expectant mother. Whichever she chooses will be the gender of the child… and is eaten by everyone present. (Read about the "godh bharai", the Indian baby shower)
- In North-America, the baby shower is often held around lunch or tea time. Hence there must be cake! Often it comes in the shape of a huge pacifier, or a baby bottle, even a huge diaper. Bon Appetit! (Read about American baby shower history and customs)
- Speaking of cheesy… A game played at American baby showers is “Guess the candy”. M&M’s, different kinds of candy bars are smeared into a diaper. Guests must identify which candy it is.
- In Belgium, when visitors come to see the new mother and child in the maternity ward (they spend about five days in the hospital), they bring gifts and in return receive a packet of “suikerbonen”, as a “party favor”. These sugar beans are almonds, or better yet, chocolate (that is to say, Belgian chocolate) coated with hard candy. There might be a scatological reference here as well.
Everyone is invited to share examples in discussion!
Related articles:
The copyright of the article Sweet Baby Shower Facts in Thailand Travel is owned by Katrien Vander Straeten. Permission to republish Sweet Baby Shower Facts must be granted by the author in writing.
