funeral food

If there’s any ordinary person worse off than yourself, you’ll find them in the problem pages of newspapers and magazines. Do you seek comfort in problem pages? A prurient frisson? An incredulous giggle? Much depends probably on the demographic catered for by the publication. The further downmarket you go, the juicier, sexier and more exotically sordid the emotional quagmire. You get none of that on the problem page of the establishment Spectator magazine. The problems which most baffle our upper echelons concern, it seems, delicate matters of etiquette. Problem solver Mary shows her petitioners how to extricate themselves from invidious social situations in ways which would have drawn gasps from old man Machiavelli himself.

When I was convalescing last month, sitting around idly reading magazines and sipping iced water, I experienced a whim and wrote to the Spectator’s Mary about a problem which exercises many funeral hosts and readers of this blog: what to call the ‘do’ afterwards. This is what I (mendaciously) wrote:

Dear Mary,

My  mother  is presently succumbing to old age and an attendant cancer. She is fortified by serene courage and cheered by the arrangements she is making for the party after her funeral; every day brings fresh finishing touches. But what to call it? We observed that you recently acceded without demur to the term ‘wake’. Inasmuch as this applies to a vigil held over a body before a funeral, we have rejected it, along with everything else we can think of including, of course, the intolerable ‘reception’ and the unbearable ‘refreshments’, leaving us only with the unobjectionable if inadequate ‘do’.  With time fast running out, can you gallop to our rescue?

My letter was published (to my inordinate pride), and received this reply, which I think helpful:

Why not refer to the event as a ‘remembrance party’? This has a bittersweet poignancy and is perfectly dignified. Readers are welcome to submit rival suggestions.

To date, no Speccie reader has submitted anything better.

Can you?

Funerals in Britain are customarily followed by eating and drinking. Are there any time-honoured foods served at funerals? Are there traditional regional variants? Are there any funeral-specific favourites — the sorts of food people associate most strongly with funerals? I’m not talking generic sausage rolls and eggy sandwiches here.

Is the custom of taking food to the bereaved still going strong? I’m not aware that it is. An Englishman’s home is his castle, after all, an English family a very private affair.

I ask because every time I read a piece in an American paper about funeral food I reflect that they seem to do it so much better than us, and in far greater quantities. If you are interested in pondering further, there’s a good piece which illustrates what I’m getting at in the Houston Press here. Do read the blog to which it links, too.

Is that we just eat anything after a funeral nowadays? Is it the case that we very rarely sit down to do it, except on soft furnishings? Anything in that?

Any views? Is this a matter of any importance whatsoever? (What a lot of questions!)

AuntAunt Fidelia
Brought the rolls
With her
Green bean casserole
The widow Smith
Down the street
Dropped by a bowl
Of butter beans
Plastic cups
And silverware
Lime green
Tupperware everywhere
Pass the chicken
Pass the pie
We sure eat good
When someone dies

Funeral food
It’s so good
For the soul
Funeral food
Fills you up
Down to your toes
Funeral food
Funeral food

There sits mean
Ole Uncle Bob
Gnawing on a corn
On the cob
And who’s that
Walking
Through the door
I don’t think
I’ve ever
Seen him before
Isn’t it a shame
She passed away
She made
The best chocolate cake
Let’s hit the line
A second time
We sure eat good
When someone dies

Everybody’s here
For the feast
But come next week
Where will they be

There isn’t a name we all use for the gathering after a funeral, is there?

Once upon a time there was the funeral feast, with bakemeats and all the booze you could drink—a good way of ensuring the dead person would be remembered fondly. But the feast petered out and became a bleak little tea. And now we don’t really know what to call it. Not a party, for sure—far too jolly, for all that many gatherings after a funeral evolve into something indistinguishable. Refreshments? A wake? A reception? A ‘do’?

None of these is entirely satisfactory, least of all ‘wake’. Waking a body is spending time with it between death and burial; it means watching over. Sorry, it’s too late for a wake.

There ought to be a word. A very specific word. It’s a very specific event, and a very important one. It is part of the funeral ceremony—the coda. It is a test of any resolutions we may have made in the presence of the coffin, summed up, perhaps, in the concluding lines of that popular funeral poem He/She is Gone: “smile, open your eyes, love and go on.”

After the emotional intensity of the funeral, the ‘do’ afterwards usually comes as a relief and a release. It depends on the circumstances, of course, but even the saddest funerals tend to be followed by a significant lightening up. There are other factors at work. When it comes to pulling power, only a dead person can reunite so many people—distant relatives, old friends. We gather for our dead in a way we never would if they were still alive. We gather for each other, too. At a time like this we want to be with each other, there for each other.

So there we are, raising our glasses and and nibbling quiche even as our dead person burns.

The longer a funeral party goes on, the more it begins to resemble a wedding. There may be everything to be said for letting it go on as long as it wants—days, if necessary.

But what should we call it? Zinnia Cyclamen comes down in favour of ‘do’. Lot to be said for that.

Have you got a better word?