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People of my age are usually married and i have been through so many Chinese weddings; i can give a pretty good guess what auspicious dishes would be served on the round table.
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It is a 'fattening' affair loaded with food and drinks and i often avoid taking my weight after the banquet! To give non-Chinese a general idea, the number of courses in a typical Chinese wedding commonly hovers between 8 and 10 with 8 symbolising prosperity, 9 representing forever and 10 signifying perfectness.
The fact that they are frequently held at night speaks of even greater unease for a person who tries to cut down on heavy meals after 7pm! Whatever the case, my topic today is on a dessert i had in a Chinese wedding held at Fairmont hotel recently.
Instead of all time favourites like yam paste, honeydew sago and red bean soup, guests were bewildered to find a cake placed on their tables.
This was no normal cake; known as baked alaska, it is "a dessert made of ice cream placed in a pie dish lined with slices of sponge cake or Christmas pudding and topped with meringue" [taken from wikipedia].
We had one with a slight variance - it was first drenched with rum and then lit with fire! The blue jumping flames were delightful to watch even though at the same time, my table mates were worried to see the meringue getting more and more burnt!
There's actually a term for this variant; Bombe Alaska.
*does sound like i am committing an act of terrorism*