Note: This was an assignment for Death and the Maiden
My first experience with death was when my elderly great aunt died and my family traveled from Illinois to Missouri for the funeral. My aunt’s home was filled with relatives, many of whom I’d never met, and there seemed to be a constant stream of women bringing food. After the funeral, people gathered at my aunt’s home to tell stories, eat, and socialize. My next experience with death was when another elderly relative died and I remember very clearly going to the church basement after the service to find a table full of food ranging from ham sandwiches to casseroles to fancy desserts. I didn’t know it at the time, but funeral feasts, or repasts as they are known in the American South, are common in most American cultural groups (Thursby, 2006, p. 81).
There are two separate traditions around food and death. The first is the parade of food dropped of at the bereaved’ s home, which is a form of love meant to keep them from cooking, and the other is the funeral repast, or meal after the funeral. Although food and death are linked, the specific practices around repasts vary by cultural group, by region, and even by church. For instance, in the Mississippi Delta, according Metcalfe and Hayes, the Episcopalian church’s repast is much more formal than that of the Methodists, which includes mostly casseroles (Metcalf & Hayes, 2005). In some areas, the funeral repast is a potluck prepared by friends of the family and served at the home of the deceased or a local relatives (Cowling, 2010, p. 123). For other folks, the ritual is that the meal is served at the church or funeral home after the service (Metcalf & Hayes, 2005). The food served differs by both church and region. Utah has a potato casserole dish that is so associated with funerals that it is called funeral potatoes (Thursby, 2006, p. 82) and in the Mississippi Delta funeral foods include fudge cake, fried walnuts, and Chicken Lasagna Florentine (Metcalf & Hayes, 2005).
The connection between food and death existed long before the first Europeans settled what is now North America. There is evidence of massive funeral feasts even during neolithic times (Goring-Morris & Horwitz, 2007) and cultures around the world have rituals that tie death and food together. In Mexico, it is common for relatives to feast at the graves of their loved ones during Dias De Los Muertes and the Chinese ritually offer food to their deceased loved ones, then ritually feast with family and friends (Smith, 2004). Despite the differences between cultures, at its core the reason food and death are linked is the same: food is a concrete way of saying ‘I love you and you matter.” When the right words are hard to find, a plate of fried chicken or a lovingly made chocolate cake is a way of giving comfort. Food also pulls people together and a shared meal provides emotional and social support for the bereaved (Cowling, 2010). There is also a belief, at least in the South, that the effort to return the casserole dishes left with the food is a way to force the bereaved out of their house and back into society (West, 2014).
The one thing that most funeral food brigades and repasts have in common is that they were and are prepared by a woman’s hands. Googling funeral foods brings up articles titled “Funeral luncheon draws rave reviews for food and women’s kindness” (Wachter, 2019) and “Funeral Ladies Bring Comfort to Bereaved Families” (Health, 2012). Although I could not find an article that specified why women were more likely to cook for funerals, my assumption is that it the same reason that women began caring for their neighbors: women are assumed to be better caretakers (Runblad, 1995). Even today, women do most of the cooking for their families (Taillie, 2018) and women do most of the emotional labor in the world (Hackman, 2015). Women may also choose to cook for funerals because it gives them a sense of purpose and a way to care for others. Additionally, it is also a way for women to take a leadership role in the church. However, the days of the funeral ladies may be coming to an end as more women work outside the home and do not have time to volunteer. (Health, 2012).
This has been one of my favorite subjects so far and I could have spent weeks researching funeral food traditions around the world. I actually started researching this after coming across an article in the Washington Post about a woman who cooks recipes she finds on tombstones (Page, 2022). Although this was not directly related to my topic, I have shared the link in my resources.
References
Cowling, C. (2010). The Good Funeral Guide : Everything You Need to Know — Everything You Need to Do. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Goring-Morris, N., & Horwitz, L. K. (2007). Funerals and feasts during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the Near East. Antiquity, 902-919.
Hackman, R. (2015, November 8). ‘Women are just better at this stuff’: is emotional labor feminism’s next frontier? Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/08/women-gender-roles-sexism-emotional-labor-feminism
Health, D. (2012, August 15). Funeral Ladies Bring Comfort to Bereaved Families. Retrieved from Pine City Press: https://www.presspubs.com/pine_city/news/funeral-ladies-bring-comfort-to-bereaved-families/article_5ae93c6a-e71d-11e1-812b-0019bb2963f4.html
Metcalf, G., & Hayes, C. (2005). Being Dead is no Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. New York: Hyperion.
Page, S. (2022, October 24). This woman bakes recipes she finds on gravestone epitaphs: ‘They’re to die for’. Retrieved from Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/24/gravestone-recipe-epitaph-ghostly-archive/
Runblad, G. (1995). Exhuming Women’s Premarket Duties in the Care of the Dead. Gender and Society, 173-192.
Smith, A. F. (2004). Funeral Food. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America (1 ed.), Referenced Online.
Taillie, L. S. (2018). Who’s cooking? Trends in US home food preparation by gender, education, and race/ethnicity from 2003 to 2016. Nutrition Journal, Online.
Thursby, J. S. (2006). Funeral Feasts Foods Biscuits and for Hope and Comfort Funeral. In J. Thursby, Funeral Festivals in America: Rituals for the Living (pp. 79-115). Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
Wachter, D. (2019, October 5). Funeral luncheon draws rave reviews for food and women’s kindness. Retrieved from New Castle News: https://www.ncnewsonline.com/news/lifestyles/funeral-luncheon-draws-rave-reviews-for-food-and-womens-kindness/article_85ac142c-4b35-5717-9519-8170e83f2cb7.html
West, M. L. (2014). Funeral Food: From Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life. In M. Goldthwaite, & J. Cognard-Black, Books That Cook : The Making of a Literary Meal. New York: New York University Press.