Our Koufeta Free Favor Boxes

So you are going to have almonds as your wedding favor, right? Um, no I am not. The women of my family look at me like I’m an alien. It’s a Greek wedding tradition that the wedding favors be sugar coated almonds aka Jordan Almonds, the Greek word for them is koufeta. As a kid/teenager/young adult when I went to any weddings (all of them were Orthodox wedding) I was always highly disappointed when I got koufeta as a wedding favor. As fluffy as the tulle that they were put in the almonds were as bland as they could be. My problem with koufeta is the sugar to almond ratio. I would prefer more sugar to compensate for the nutty flavor. Until I figured out the proper way to eat koufeta that would make the dessert tolerable I would never take the favor or I would always give the favor to my Yiayia, who loves sweets. In case you were wondering what the proper way to eat koufeta was, you have to eat the sugar coating first then you eat the nut. Simply biting into the koufeta will not maximize it’s flavor.

Koufeta Source Notice all the tulle

My mom thought that we didn’t need traditional favors. But if we were going to have favors it had to be koufeta. I wanted to have koufeta available at the wedding but I didn’t it want to be a main favor. When my mom shared her opinion she unintentionally made me feel guilty and feel that I was shaming my heritage by not carrying on the koufeta favor tradition. The koufeta is supposed to symbolize purity and the egg shape of the almond is supposed to represent fertility and new life which begins with marriage. The hardness of the almond is supposed to represent the endurance of the marriage and the sweetness of the sugar symbolizes the sweetness of future life. There is also an old wives tale that single women are supposed to put the almonds under their pillow the night of the wedding and then they will dream of their future husband. Even all these traditions are meaningful to my culture, it still doesn’t hide the fact that the almonds are not tasty. The final deciding factor of not having koufeta as our favor is the fact that Phil is allergic to nuts and can’t eat our own wedding favor. Meanwhile when I was trying to make the argument not to have koufeta as the favors; I couldn’t think of another good favor to have. I did research on different types of candy and what candy was the most 1920s. When I think of the 1920s I think of alcohol specifically drinking fancy champagne in secret speakeasies. So I started researching champagne flavored candy and I found out a division of Jelly Belly made a jelly bean like candy called champagne bubbles. They were a perfect solution to my koufeta problem they were white, affordable, and way tastier. Then I took it upon myself to make the decision that these “bubbles” were our favor because they went with our theme. Don’t worry Greek people a fancy bowl of koufeta will still be available on the dessert table to put under your pillow that night.