桃園火車站英文補習班│Happy Birthday to you! 生日蛋糕的由來 @ TOEIC,TOEFL,IELTS,全民英檢,SAT,菁英英日語-桃園分校

每一年大家最期待的節日是什麼？？

生日快樂！如果你是25歲以下的青春美少女...應該會跟小編一樣期待吧～哈哈

Happy Birthday to You～Happy Birthday to You～

與壽星吃蛋糕的同時怎能不知道生日蛋糕的由來呢！

Cultures have been creating celebratory‘cakes’(the term cake and bread were often interchangeable) for thousands of years. However, cakes, specifically for birthdays, similar to what we enjoy today, are believed to have originated in Germany in the 1400′s. Before that time, cakes were almost solely for the celebration of weddings but bakeries began to market them for birthdays as well.

節日或慶典的蛋糕（麵包）已經有好幾千年的歷史了～但是我們現在所熟知的生日蛋糕據說是源自於大約西元1400年的德國，在這之前，麵包和蛋糕幾乎都是用在婚禮上，但是麵包店開始推銷生日用的蛋糕。

*interchangeable ( adj. ) 可替換的

Until the industrial revolution, birthday cakes were almost exclusively for the wealthy, as they were able to afford such extravagance. The industrial revolution helped to spread birthday cakes to the public as the advancement and proliferation of technology and materials made them cheaper and more easily produced.

工業革命前，只有有錢人可以負擔生日蛋糕這樣的額外花費，工業革命幫助生日蛋糕的普及，因為科技的進步和材料取得較易，使得蛋糕更便宜也更好製作。

* exclusively ( adv. ) 專門地

* extravagance ( n. ) 奢侈

* proliferation ( n. ) 激增 ; 擴散

Like cakes themselves, the tradition of lit candles adorning a cake goes back thousands of years, but did not necessarily become associated with birthdays until much later.

而在蛋糕上插蠟燭的傳統其實也有好幾千年歷史了，但是並不完全跟生日有關係，是比較近代才開始和生日有關聯。

*adorn ( v. ) 裝飾

Artemis Greek Goddess of Hunting

In Ancient Greece, Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, as well as the moon (Her twin brother, Apollo, was god of the sun). It is said that cakes brought to the temple of Artemis were adorned with candles to make them glow like the moon. Many ancient cultures and many religions also believed that smoke was a vehicle to carry prayers up to the gods, and it is possible that this idea is the basis for our modern “make a wish” tradition.

古希臘狩獵女神 – 阿提米斯

在古希臘，阿提米斯是狩獵女神，同時也是月亮女神(她的兄弟是太陽神阿波羅)，據說放上蠟燭的蛋糕被帶到阿提米斯神殿時，發光起來很像月亮，非常多古代的文化和宗教相信煙可以帶領信眾去見上帝，而這個說法可能來自於我們現在的「許願」這個傳統。

As with the marketing of birthday cakes, the addition of candles is also attributed to the Germans around the 1700′s when Kinderfesten, birthday celebrations for children, became more common. The custom was to place a candle for each year of their life as well as extra candles to represent years to come.

當越來越多人在銷售生日蛋糕，也有人說點蠟燭的傳統大約起源於西元1700年，由德國人開始的，從那時起，幫小孩子慶生越來越普遍，習俗是，在每年生日放上和歲數相同的蠟燭，同時也會多放幾根蠟燭來代表接下來的幾年。

While birthday celebrations vary all over the world, most cultures do celebrate the anniversary of birth in some way, and baked sweets like birthday cakes seems to be a very popular way to do so!

慶祝生日已經幾乎普及全球，而大多數的文化也都有每年慶生的習慣，只是方式可能不太相同，但是共通點是大部分都會製作一些類似生日蛋糕的甜點。