I have been told that my marriage didn't work because I didn't have a cookie table! My Southern mother couldn't handle the concept at the time.
She is now 100% sold on them!
I'll admit, though, the last local wedding I went used purple and black as their colors (Scottish wedding, the kilts & sashes were in the clan colors). Seeing black and purple filling in a mini-ladylock didn't look very attractive. I found the whole Susanna Martinsen article, quoted here on Greek Chat:
The Legend of the Cookie Table
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An excerpt from "The Cookie Table: A Pittsburgh Tradition"
by Suzanne Martinson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Food Editor
You can have a designer wedding gown and tuxedo or hand-me-downs. You can have an "A-copy" guest list or just the closest of kissing kin. You can receive your guests at the fanciest restaurant or at a potluck at the firehall. But you aren't truly a Pittsburgher unless you have The Cookie Table.
When we first moved here and a bride-to-be mentioned The Cookie Table, I was puzzled. "What do you need cookies for?" I asked. "At a wedding, you eat cake."
Little did I know. The Cookie Table is as much a part of Pittsburgh as the Pirates and the Steelers and the Penguins. We may bleed black and gold, but at any event worth writing home about, we have cookies.
And most of these cookies are homemade by the mother of the bride, sisters, aunts, cousins and grandmothers. Sometimes both sides of the extended family get involved. Friends are also called into the fray. Happy to do it, in fact.
The Cookie Table is, indeed, the gift of love.
Nobody knows the exact origin of the tradition, which has been exported to other parts of Pennsylvania, other states, too. It may be Italian or Slovak or Polish or Croatian or Greek. The Scandinavians may get involved, and the Indians, too. The Germans do cookies, and so do the Irish. If we've left anybody out (like the English), add them to the cookie equation. There may be no greater tribute to cross-cultural friends and marriages than The Cookie Table. It's what makes America great; a medley of cultures taking the best from each. The best, in this case, being favorite family cookie recipes. When we researched the topic for the premier edition of the Food Section in 1996, we talked with more than 150 people. The cookies that emerged most often as the "must haves" on the table were: Pizzelles; Biscotti; Italian Anise Drops; Baklava; Cherry Cheesecakes; Thumbprints; Pecan Tassies; Apricot, Poppyseed, and Nut Rolls. And two indicators that Americans never stop innovating: Buckeyes and Hershey Kiss Cookies...
Remember, in Pittsburgh, people don't wonder, "How was the wedding?" They ask, "Were the cookies good?"
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