Funerals and Food
Paper given at New Zealand Symposium of Gastronomy
Napier 2024 Max Dingle OAM
Death, funerals and food practices, as well as the reasons for funeral feasting vary widely throughout history and across cultures. This paper gives a brief overview of various funeral food practices and traditions over time, mostly from a “western” perspective. As is appropriate with endings, it finishes with contemplation of a funeral ‘feast’, the preferred food and wine to be served at my wake.
The oldest funeral feasts - While there is some speculation about earlier burial site findings, the remains of 71 roasted tortoises found interred with the bones of a woman, and in another grave site, the bones of two butchered and roasted wild cattle, seem to be the oldest and best documented feasts accompanying burial of the dead. These 12,000 year old middle-eastern graves were associated with a community on the verge of changing from nomadic to an agricultural life and it is speculated that the feasts were either means of joining people together, a source of community grief, or, as not all graves included evidence of feasts, a reinforcement and show of power by leading families.
In classical literary sources such as the Bible, feasting at funerals seems to be a two way bet. Ecclesiastes suggests that: It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. i
While Jeremiah, in criticising a particular group of people, suggests, that feasting at their funeral is too honourable to be even contemplated. ii
In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles mourns Patroclus:
His soldiers took off their burnished bronze equipment, unyoked their neighing horses, and sat down in their hundreds beside the ship of the swift son of Peleus, who produced for them a delicious funeral feast. Many a white ox fell with his last gasp to the iron knife, many a sheep and bleating goat was slaughtered, and many a fine fat hog was stretched across the flames to have his bristles singed. Cupfuls of blood were poured all around the corpse.iii
Herodotus in his Histories, notes that in Egypt at feasts, in a practice that foreshadows death and a funeral : They eat loaves made from spelt and wine from barley, as they have no vines in the country. Some kinds of fish are eaten raw, either dried in the sun, or salted; quails too they eat raw, ducks and various small birds, after pickling them in brine; other sorts of birds and fish, apart from those considered sacred, they either roast or boil. When the rich give a feast and the meal is finished, a man carries round amongst the guests, a wooden image of a corpse in a coffin, carved and painted to look as real as possible,. It is shown to each guest in turn while saying. “ Look upon this as you drink and enjoy yourself; for you will be like this when you die. iv
Apart from food provided in the tomb for the departed’s journey, there seem to be a number of food rituals centered around Egyptian funerals. The New York Metropolitan Museum’s neat detective work on a collection of large pottery jars, broken pottery, animal bones and mud seals of King Tutankhamen, which Theodore Davis had discovered in a separate pit near the entrance to the Royal tomb and donated to the fledgling Museum collection in 1909, revealed that a meal took place with the rites performed for the deceased’s statue that provided a place of materialisation for a dead person’s soul. These statue rites are repeatedly depicted in reliefs and paintings as being enacted in a garden setting, with food offerings set out on tables and drinks in large jars like those in the Davis collection. All the evidence indicated that the collection items were part of a display of food offerings set out at the consecration of a statue of Tutankhamen. As was customary in antiquity, the participants in the offering ritual would have consumed the food after the ceremonies were concluded, and the utensils, jars and plates broken and, along with the food remains, buried at the site of the ceremony. v
During Roman times, the mourning and solemnities connected with the dead lasted for nine days after the funeral, at the end of which time a sacrifice was performed. A feast given in honour of the dead, sometimes appears to have been given at the time of the funeral, sometimes at the sacrifice and other times at a later date.
The richer the family and more prestigious the person, the greater the activities in honour of the deceased. Funeral rites could include a feast for friends and relatives, distribution of food to the people, a public banquet as well as gladiatorial combat and other games. Thus at the funeral of P. Licinius Crassus, who had been Pontifex Maximus, fresh cuts of meat were distributed, one hundred and twenty gladiators fought, and three days of funeral games were celebrated; at the end of which a public banquet was given in the forum. Sometimes these funeral rites and games were repeated on the anniversary of the person’s death. vi
Medieval funeral traditions, mainly feasts and distribution of food or alms, were a carry-over from to those that developed through Roman times. In England it was common for wills or the executors of the estate, to make provision for funerals and feasts. In a documented funeral quoted by Chris Woolgar, the costs indicate that 554 loaves of bread, 357 gallons of cider and one and a half carcasses of beef were consumed. Quantities which seem to indicate that some 500 people would have taken part in the funeral feast. Distributions to the poor attending funerals were sometimes made in cash rather than as food. In 1412, Alexander Tottington, Bishop of Norwich, left £20 to be distributed to the poor on the day of his burial – as the will specified denariatim – i.e. a penny to each person – 4800 people benefited from the Bishop’s largesse. vii
Over time, these very generous feasts gradually diminished in quantity and in the numbers of participants. While in the seventeenth century the funeral feast for the wealthy still offered an expensive variety of meats, pickles, creams and cakes, by the nineteenth the arrangements had become more modest.
Early in 19th Century Britain, the emergence of a financially stable middle class, came with improved life expectancy. Early deaths were viewed increasingly as tragic and deserving of elaborate and grand-scale mourning. Funeral and mourning practices were further ritualized after 1861when Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Consort Alfred, died. She went into deep mourning for the remainder of her life and set a precedent which many of her British subjects followed. Death practices (and related superstitions) became more elaborate as the century progressed; however, toward the end of the 1800s, the ostentatious show had begun to diminish, and by the 1890s, funerary practices were relegated to a prescribed set of social rules. viii
A feast was held at the home of the deceased; sometimes after the funeral, but sometimes before the funeral with the body being present. Ham, cider, ale, pies and cakes were the usual fare for middle class families. Formal invitations were sent and in attendance would be both the immediate and extended family as well friends and business associates. ix Working- class funerals were much more basic with funeral foods such as crispy sponge fingers or “coffins,” oatcake, and caraway shortcake. x
Though some were very simple; as in James Joyce’s short story, ‘The Sisters’, set c.1900:
We crossed ourselves and came away. In the little room downstairs we found Eliza seated in his armchair … while Nannie went to the sideboard and bought out a decanter of sherry and some wineglasses. She set these on the table and invited us to take a glass of wine. Then at her sister’s bidding, she filled out the sherry into the glasses and handed them to us. She pressed me to take some cream crackers also, but I declined because I thought I would make too much noise eating them. She seemed to be somewhat disappointed and went over quietly to the sofa, where she sat down behind her sister.
No one spoke: we all gazed at the empty fireplace.
My Aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said:
‘Ah, well, he’s gone to a better world.’ xi
Speaking of sherry. Alcoholic drink, from ale, wine, whisky to Swedish funeral Glogg, has long played a role in the funeral wake, ubiquitous to the point of riotious behaviour, and the “merry” Irish Wake is almost a cliché; in the 1600’s the wake was called “the drinking”; At the drinking following a gentlewoman’s funeral in Abingdon in 1641 literally gallons of sack, white wine, and claret were served. xii As a result of drunken and ‘unchristian’ behaviour at drinkings: ...young lads and lasses romp with one another, and when the fathers and mothers are at last overcome with sleep and whiskey, the youth become more enterprising, and are frequently successful. xiii
In 1660 the Synod of Tuam unsuccessfully attempted to rid wakes of alcoholic drink; including instruction of Clergy at wakes ‘to ensure that death was uppermost in the minds of those who attended’. xiv In fact the bacchanal continued for hundreds of years and, happily still has not entirely disappeared: There is something deeply pagan in these practices, harkening back to the cycles of the earth, not of sin and heaven or hell, but of death and life in a grand circle; while honouring the passing of a revered member of the community and at the same time celebrating that it’s not your time quite yet. xv
A brief look at some other traditions
In a number of Asian countries rice is a symbol of life and is included in all funerals. Baskets of fruit and vegetables are gifted to families, while eating chicken symbolically helps the soul of the dead to fly to heaven. Sugar, in the form of sweets/candies, handed out after a funeral, is meant to purify mourners after coming into contact with the dead.
In parts of Aboriginal Australia, some recorded historical funeral practices have included: covering the deceased with red ochre, painting clan and linguistic group totemic patterns on the face, chest and abdomen of the body. While a feast may held, no food is set aside for the spirit, in the hope it will be compelled to leave the earthly surroundings it is familiar with. To assist in the driving away of the spirit, the mourners brush themselves with smoking green leaves to purify themselves. The deceased is placed on a specially prepared platform and a small fire is lit under the platform so that the spirit can hunt and cook their own food. xvi
Inuit, the indigenous people in the arctic regions of North America have a whole of nature approach to life and believe the earth, the sea, the plants, and the animals are all part of the divine; belong to the whole, and live in brotherhood with all living beings. In their minds dying is just a crossing from the physical world to the spiritual world. Every being, whether human, animal, or vegetable, has a soul or a breath that lasts after death. The name of the dead person is not used until a newborn is given that name; from this time the deceased continues to live both through the living being and within the other worlds. xvii
Grief support is mainly given prior to death and may include hunters bringing food to the home, women offering support for cooking and cleaning, and people accompanying the family by simply being present.
After death the mourning period lasts five days, rituals during this period include emptying the dead person’s house, purifying it through cleaning and fumigation and particular food items are not eaten. For the community the grieving ends with the burial service. As noted by one Inuk woman; people are usually very helpful prior to and during the funeral, bringing food and making sure the funeral service and burial run smoothly: “People are very good about that… though once the body is buried, it's like, they’ve done their part; that's it.” xviii
In our present - Apart from the funerals of heads of state and celebrities, whose expensive funerals are more a photo and social media opportunity for the attendees and do not involve any public meals or alms giving, our society has experienced a gradual demise of formal community funerary rituals, although the funeral meal, a “wake”, is still reasonably common within the family, albeit held after the burial service, more in the form of a “cocktail” function, alcoholic beverages and finger food, rather than a meal as such.
In checking numerous websites for companies that cater for such gatherings the main criterion for developing the menu is for an ‘informal’ function where guests stand and mingle with friends and family. Invariably finger food is recommended as a simple and easy way to feed groups. No thought appears to be given to offering to develop an individual menu that would reflect the likes or recall memories of the departed. This demise of ritual, some think, brings with it psychological and social impoverishment, for the immediate bereaved and the larger social community. However the holding of a wake, and associated food, that still happens, function as a group experience and can help focus on the needs of the living. xix
Also across cultures, food is sometimes provided by friends for the family of the deceased. Bread, casseroles, noodles, soup and cakes are delivered to the house of the mourners to provide substance, comfort, and to let those that have lost a family member know they are loved. As well, in a number of cultures, particularly in Latin America, the mourners provide food to be “shared” with the deceased. Latin America, their art, food and festivities surrounding Day of the Dead is of particular appeal, because it is about life and that death is just a part of life.
Dia de los muertos
The day of the dead, is a celebration held all over Latin America but has its roots in the indigenous Aztec culture of Mexico, in the beliefs and ceremonies surrounding Lady Death.
Lady Death, guards the bones of the dead until they can be reused in another life. As well, once a year, she allows the spirits of the dead to rejoin the living, for the family to remember departed loved ones and remind us all that death is a part of life.
After the Spanish invasion, the Catholic religion failed in their attempts to totally destroy that culture and Lady Death resurrected herself in the Day of the Dead Celebrations now held on the Catholic feast days of All Saints and All Souls.
November 1st is the Day of the Little Angels, when the spirits of departed children visit their families. All children are considered innocent and ascend into heaven at death, to become angels and the souls of children are so eager to return they arrive a whole day ahead of the adults. They are welcomed with lots of candies, sugar skulls and their beloved toys.
The spirits of departed adults return on 2nd November and public celebrations include street parades, with participants in elaborate costumes wearing make-up or masks in the form of grinning skulls, the symbol of Lady Death. The colour for festivities is orange and Marigold flowers abound, forming garlands and decorations for people, food, altars, graves and streets.
As with the little angels, the spirits are welcomed in family homes and at grave sites with small altars decorated with photographs of the dead, lighted candles, food that the person loved and enjoyed when they were alive, such as corn, tamales, chocolate, caramel flan and a special Pan de Muerto, baked for the day of festivities. This bread of the dead is flavoured with sugar, anise seeds and orange zest. and typically made in a particular shape, with pieces forming a cross to symbolize the bones of the dead, while on top is a small ball, which some say is a teardrop, representing the tears shed.
The food and the Pan de Muerto is an offering made to the departed loved one, whose spirit is nourished by the “essence” of the offerings, while the family members are physically nourished by eating the bread and other food.
Ultimately the celebration is a happy one, for while a departed child is a sad loss, the family has gained an angel and the adult departed remain a part of the family, as they are only truly dead when they are forgotten. xx
A Funeral Feast
Death never really intruded into my world until I was about 18 when I drove my father to the funeral of his brother. Even then, as I got lost driving around the streets of suburban Brisbane, we only went to the wake which seemed like a family get together with cakes and beer. Nothing remotely like the Mexican Day of the Dead festivities happened in my immediate family nor in the culture I was raised in; Once a person died and was buried, it was an exception for anyone to even visit a grave let alone remember the dead on a regular basis.
Thinking about my own funeral, the wake and the menu that should be served; developing a menu would need to take into account today’s community idea of what constitutes a wake and the expectation that the executor of the estate would opt for the cocktail function approach, rather than a full blown feast; The latter would be rather fun, but would possibly be difficult to bring off - while a catering firm could do such a feast there always seems to be a too “professional” touch, at least not fitting with my (current) idea of entertaining people with a banquet cooked at home. Plus on the personal front the lack of anyone really close with the capability and willingness to take the responsibility of hosting and cooking such a funeral feast.
As well, an awareness that …good food has a remarkable potential to cut through our existential anxieties and… as our hearts and minds tell us all is dreadful, our mouths can whisper ‘Yes, but the pizza is still delicious.’... xxi
My preference would be that the food served at my wake reflected my enjoyment of eating, including particular tastes, textures and styles. So a menu for the food to be served has been developed from various likes and food habits. A process that was best started in looking at celebrations such as Christmas. Where the main dish for my Christmas is, invariably, duck with a fruit sauce, whichever fruit is ready for picking in the garden, and the wine, in that great South Australian tradition, a cold sparkling red wine on a summer day, is usually Seppelt’s Vintage Sparkling Shiraz.
Favoured foods are usually served simply and can incorporate spices and flavours from various cultural traditions; to take the duck as an example, rather than using a direct French influence, combining this with Chinese and Mexican influences would reflect my home style of cooking; wherein a serve would consist of small portions of crisp skin and rare meat from pan /grilled breast along with a slight touch of poached fruit, wrapped in pancakes that have a hint of anise and orange, as in the Mexican Pan de Muerto.
Menu items can also be developed from a list of foods and influences that I love, which could include : Chinese, Mediterranean, seafood, hand cut chips, eggplant, rhubarb, olives, cheese, oat biscuits, olive oil, sourdough bread and fresh fruit.
The following proposed menu was developed from these ideas. It was then tested, by Michael Guiliano and Max Dingle in September 2024, to great success. The recipes prepared, cooked and flavourings adjusted. xxii A number of sparkling red wine varieties were tasted; during the course of which it was discovered that handmade dumplings, even if the shapes and contents started varying considerably, do not lose their appeal, in fact everything seemed to improve in line with the number of wines tasted.
Funeral Food - Menu for a Wake
Waiter Service:
Deep fried tripe
(Thin strips of very tender, honeycomb tripe, cooked a la Lyonnaise or Chinese (ginger, green onion, Anise, Soy) dipped in tempura batter and deep fried )
Hand-cut Chips
(Deep fried served in small newspaper cups)
Beetroot dumplings
(Smashed beetroot, salted butter, finely grated rind of an orange, pepper, gow gee pastry - Steamed)
Pea and prawn dumplings
(Mashed peas, diced prawn, salted garlic butter, dash of lemon juice, gow gee pastry - Steamed)
Spiced eggplant dumplings
(Eggplant puree, salt, pepper, sumac, touch of chilli, gow gee pastry - Fried)
Duck pancakes
(Thinly sliced pan / grilled rare Duck breasts, a touch of poached seasonal fruit eg blackberry or plum, wrapped in anise and orange pancakes)
Rhubarb Custard Tarts
(Shortcrust pastry, layer of roast rhubarb covered in Greek Galaktoboureko )
Sparkling Red wine
Self serve :
Olives
Whole Brie with oat biscuits
Platters of fresh fruit
(one of watermelon cubes with raspberries, strawberries dressed in a light rosewater sugar syrup, one of sweet orange segments.)
Funeral Biscuits
( Almond shortbread biscuits - in small boxes, each box with a limited edition inkjet print; from the Funeral Series – Emotional Body by Max Dingle - Consisting of 12 works each in an edition of 3 prints) xxiii
Coffee, tea, water
NOTES
i Anon Bible, King James Version Ecclesiastes 7:2-3
ii https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2012-16&version=NIV Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal… No one will offer food to comfort those who mourn for the dead—not even for a father or a mother—nor will anyone give them a drink to console them.
iii Homer The Iliad 1950 Penguin
iv Herodotus The Histories 1960 Penguin Classics
v https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tuta/hd_tuta.htm 2010 Dorothea Arnold
vi https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Funus.html Roman Funerals
vii Woolgar Chris Eating, drinking and the dead in late medieval England 2019 Journal : Leidschrift Vol 34 Scholarly Publications Leiden University
viii https://victorianmonsters.wordpress.com/victorian-funerary-practices/
ix https://www.morbidoutlook.com/nonfiction/articles/2003_04_vicdeath.html
x Frisby Helen Victorian Funeral Food Customs 2019 Victorian Review Vol 45 No 2 John Hopkins University
xi Joyce James Dubliners 1956 Penguin
xii Gittings Clare & Jupp Peter Death in England 1999 Manchester University Press
xiii Lysaght, Patricia, Hospitality at wakes and funerals in Ireland 17th -19th Century 2003 Folklore Journal
xiv Lysaght, Patricia, Hospitality at wakes and funerals in Ireland 17th -19th Century 2003 Folklore Journal
xv https://blackthornandstone.com/2020/05/28/dancing-with-death-a-short-history-of-funeral-feasts-merry-wakes/ Dr Romany Reagan
xvi https://austhrutime.com/aboriginal_mortuary_rites_platform.htm W H Munroe
xvii https://peuplesautochtones.com/inuit-people-funeral-rites/
xviii https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634615221135423
xix Yoder Lonnie The Funeral Meal 1986 Journal of Religion and Health Vol 25 No 2 Springer
xx Max Dingle OAM Death Love – Art 2023 Exhibition text, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery
xxi Julian Baggini The Virtues of the Table 2014 Granta Publications
xxii As both people involved in the test cooking were experienced cooks, no detailed written recipes were used or noted, as ingredients and cooking times for all items on the menu were considered self evident. In retrospect, rather than doing almost everything from scratch, there are a few prepared ingredients that can be purchased from a good grocery or supermarket, especially those specialising in Asian foods – BBQ duck, Dim Sum cooked honeycomb tripe, dumpling wrappers, frozen pastry, biscuits, oat and shortbread.
xxiii Fave Dei Morti
These traditional Italian cookies are not just reserved for funerals, but they are also baked every November 2 – All Souls’ Day – and are meant to serve as transport for the souls of the dead.
Ingredients
· 7 ounces (200 grams) almonds or almond meal
· 3/4 cups (100 grams) flour
· 1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar
· 1 medium-large egg
· 2 tablespoons (30 grams) butter
· 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
· 1 shot Grappa ( brandy, rum, gin or other is OK)
1. Combine all the ingredients together until you have a smooth, compact dough. If it is too crumbly, add some warm water, a very little bit at a time until the dough comes together.
2. Roll walnut-sized pieces of dough into balls and place on a lined baking tray. Flatten each ball into a disc and bake at 350°F for 10-15 minutes or until dry to the touch and hardened but not too browned. Once cool, keep in an air tight container.
The oldest funeral feasts - While there is some speculation about earlier burial site findings, the remains of 71 roasted tortoises found interred with the bones of a woman, and in another grave site, the bones of two butchered and roasted wild cattle, seem to be the oldest and best documented feasts accompanying burial of the dead. These 12,000 year old middle-eastern graves were associated with a community on the verge of changing from nomadic to an agricultural life and it is speculated that the feasts were either means of joining people together, a source of community grief, or, as not all graves included evidence of feasts, a reinforcement and show of power by leading families.
In classical literary sources such as the Bible, feasting at funerals seems to be a two way bet. Ecclesiastes suggests that: It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. i
While Jeremiah, in criticising a particular group of people, suggests, that feasting at their funeral is too honourable to be even contemplated. ii
In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles mourns Patroclus:
His soldiers took off their burnished bronze equipment, unyoked their neighing horses, and sat down in their hundreds beside the ship of the swift son of Peleus, who produced for them a delicious funeral feast. Many a white ox fell with his last gasp to the iron knife, many a sheep and bleating goat was slaughtered, and many a fine fat hog was stretched across the flames to have his bristles singed. Cupfuls of blood were poured all around the corpse.iii
Herodotus in his Histories, notes that in Egypt at feasts, in a practice that foreshadows death and a funeral : They eat loaves made from spelt and wine from barley, as they have no vines in the country. Some kinds of fish are eaten raw, either dried in the sun, or salted; quails too they eat raw, ducks and various small birds, after pickling them in brine; other sorts of birds and fish, apart from those considered sacred, they either roast or boil. When the rich give a feast and the meal is finished, a man carries round amongst the guests, a wooden image of a corpse in a coffin, carved and painted to look as real as possible,. It is shown to each guest in turn while saying. “ Look upon this as you drink and enjoy yourself; for you will be like this when you die. iv
Apart from food provided in the tomb for the departed’s journey, there seem to be a number of food rituals centered around Egyptian funerals. The New York Metropolitan Museum’s neat detective work on a collection of large pottery jars, broken pottery, animal bones and mud seals of King Tutankhamen, which Theodore Davis had discovered in a separate pit near the entrance to the Royal tomb and donated to the fledgling Museum collection in 1909, revealed that a meal took place with the rites performed for the deceased’s statue that provided a place of materialisation for a dead person’s soul. These statue rites are repeatedly depicted in reliefs and paintings as being enacted in a garden setting, with food offerings set out on tables and drinks in large jars like those in the Davis collection. All the evidence indicated that the collection items were part of a display of food offerings set out at the consecration of a statue of Tutankhamen. As was customary in antiquity, the participants in the offering ritual would have consumed the food after the ceremonies were concluded, and the utensils, jars and plates broken and, along with the food remains, buried at the site of the ceremony. v
During Roman times, the mourning and solemnities connected with the dead lasted for nine days after the funeral, at the end of which time a sacrifice was performed. A feast given in honour of the dead, sometimes appears to have been given at the time of the funeral, sometimes at the sacrifice and other times at a later date.
The richer the family and more prestigious the person, the greater the activities in honour of the deceased. Funeral rites could include a feast for friends and relatives, distribution of food to the people, a public banquet as well as gladiatorial combat and other games. Thus at the funeral of P. Licinius Crassus, who had been Pontifex Maximus, fresh cuts of meat were distributed, one hundred and twenty gladiators fought, and three days of funeral games were celebrated; at the end of which a public banquet was given in the forum. Sometimes these funeral rites and games were repeated on the anniversary of the person’s death. vi
Medieval funeral traditions, mainly feasts and distribution of food or alms, were a carry-over from to those that developed through Roman times. In England it was common for wills or the executors of the estate, to make provision for funerals and feasts. In a documented funeral quoted by Chris Woolgar, the costs indicate that 554 loaves of bread, 357 gallons of cider and one and a half carcasses of beef were consumed. Quantities which seem to indicate that some 500 people would have taken part in the funeral feast. Distributions to the poor attending funerals were sometimes made in cash rather than as food. In 1412, Alexander Tottington, Bishop of Norwich, left £20 to be distributed to the poor on the day of his burial – as the will specified denariatim – i.e. a penny to each person – 4800 people benefited from the Bishop’s largesse. vii
Over time, these very generous feasts gradually diminished in quantity and in the numbers of participants. While in the seventeenth century the funeral feast for the wealthy still offered an expensive variety of meats, pickles, creams and cakes, by the nineteenth the arrangements had become more modest.
Early in 19th Century Britain, the emergence of a financially stable middle class, came with improved life expectancy. Early deaths were viewed increasingly as tragic and deserving of elaborate and grand-scale mourning. Funeral and mourning practices were further ritualized after 1861when Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Consort Alfred, died. She went into deep mourning for the remainder of her life and set a precedent which many of her British subjects followed. Death practices (and related superstitions) became more elaborate as the century progressed; however, toward the end of the 1800s, the ostentatious show had begun to diminish, and by the 1890s, funerary practices were relegated to a prescribed set of social rules. viii
A feast was held at the home of the deceased; sometimes after the funeral, but sometimes before the funeral with the body being present. Ham, cider, ale, pies and cakes were the usual fare for middle class families. Formal invitations were sent and in attendance would be both the immediate and extended family as well friends and business associates. ix Working- class funerals were much more basic with funeral foods such as crispy sponge fingers or “coffins,” oatcake, and caraway shortcake. x
Though some were very simple; as in James Joyce’s short story, ‘The Sisters’, set c.1900:
We crossed ourselves and came away. In the little room downstairs we found Eliza seated in his armchair … while Nannie went to the sideboard and bought out a decanter of sherry and some wineglasses. She set these on the table and invited us to take a glass of wine. Then at her sister’s bidding, she filled out the sherry into the glasses and handed them to us. She pressed me to take some cream crackers also, but I declined because I thought I would make too much noise eating them. She seemed to be somewhat disappointed and went over quietly to the sofa, where she sat down behind her sister.
No one spoke: we all gazed at the empty fireplace.
My Aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said:
‘Ah, well, he’s gone to a better world.’ xi
Speaking of sherry. Alcoholic drink, from ale, wine, whisky to Swedish funeral Glogg, has long played a role in the funeral wake, ubiquitous to the point of riotious behaviour, and the “merry” Irish Wake is almost a cliché; in the 1600’s the wake was called “the drinking”; At the drinking following a gentlewoman’s funeral in Abingdon in 1641 literally gallons of sack, white wine, and claret were served. xii As a result of drunken and ‘unchristian’ behaviour at drinkings: ...young lads and lasses romp with one another, and when the fathers and mothers are at last overcome with sleep and whiskey, the youth become more enterprising, and are frequently successful. xiii
In 1660 the Synod of Tuam unsuccessfully attempted to rid wakes of alcoholic drink; including instruction of Clergy at wakes ‘to ensure that death was uppermost in the minds of those who attended’. xiv In fact the bacchanal continued for hundreds of years and, happily still has not entirely disappeared: There is something deeply pagan in these practices, harkening back to the cycles of the earth, not of sin and heaven or hell, but of death and life in a grand circle; while honouring the passing of a revered member of the community and at the same time celebrating that it’s not your time quite yet. xv
A brief look at some other traditions
In a number of Asian countries rice is a symbol of life and is included in all funerals. Baskets of fruit and vegetables are gifted to families, while eating chicken symbolically helps the soul of the dead to fly to heaven. Sugar, in the form of sweets/candies, handed out after a funeral, is meant to purify mourners after coming into contact with the dead.
In parts of Aboriginal Australia, some recorded historical funeral practices have included: covering the deceased with red ochre, painting clan and linguistic group totemic patterns on the face, chest and abdomen of the body. While a feast may held, no food is set aside for the spirit, in the hope it will be compelled to leave the earthly surroundings it is familiar with. To assist in the driving away of the spirit, the mourners brush themselves with smoking green leaves to purify themselves. The deceased is placed on a specially prepared platform and a small fire is lit under the platform so that the spirit can hunt and cook their own food. xvi
Inuit, the indigenous people in the arctic regions of North America have a whole of nature approach to life and believe the earth, the sea, the plants, and the animals are all part of the divine; belong to the whole, and live in brotherhood with all living beings. In their minds dying is just a crossing from the physical world to the spiritual world. Every being, whether human, animal, or vegetable, has a soul or a breath that lasts after death. The name of the dead person is not used until a newborn is given that name; from this time the deceased continues to live both through the living being and within the other worlds. xvii
Grief support is mainly given prior to death and may include hunters bringing food to the home, women offering support for cooking and cleaning, and people accompanying the family by simply being present.
After death the mourning period lasts five days, rituals during this period include emptying the dead person’s house, purifying it through cleaning and fumigation and particular food items are not eaten. For the community the grieving ends with the burial service. As noted by one Inuk woman; people are usually very helpful prior to and during the funeral, bringing food and making sure the funeral service and burial run smoothly: “People are very good about that… though once the body is buried, it's like, they’ve done their part; that's it.” xviii
In our present - Apart from the funerals of heads of state and celebrities, whose expensive funerals are more a photo and social media opportunity for the attendees and do not involve any public meals or alms giving, our society has experienced a gradual demise of formal community funerary rituals, although the funeral meal, a “wake”, is still reasonably common within the family, albeit held after the burial service, more in the form of a “cocktail” function, alcoholic beverages and finger food, rather than a meal as such.
In checking numerous websites for companies that cater for such gatherings the main criterion for developing the menu is for an ‘informal’ function where guests stand and mingle with friends and family. Invariably finger food is recommended as a simple and easy way to feed groups. No thought appears to be given to offering to develop an individual menu that would reflect the likes or recall memories of the departed. This demise of ritual, some think, brings with it psychological and social impoverishment, for the immediate bereaved and the larger social community. However the holding of a wake, and associated food, that still happens, function as a group experience and can help focus on the needs of the living. xix
Also across cultures, food is sometimes provided by friends for the family of the deceased. Bread, casseroles, noodles, soup and cakes are delivered to the house of the mourners to provide substance, comfort, and to let those that have lost a family member know they are loved. As well, in a number of cultures, particularly in Latin America, the mourners provide food to be “shared” with the deceased. Latin America, their art, food and festivities surrounding Day of the Dead is of particular appeal, because it is about life and that death is just a part of life.
Dia de los muertos
The day of the dead, is a celebration held all over Latin America but has its roots in the indigenous Aztec culture of Mexico, in the beliefs and ceremonies surrounding Lady Death.
Lady Death, guards the bones of the dead until they can be reused in another life. As well, once a year, she allows the spirits of the dead to rejoin the living, for the family to remember departed loved ones and remind us all that death is a part of life.
After the Spanish invasion, the Catholic religion failed in their attempts to totally destroy that culture and Lady Death resurrected herself in the Day of the Dead Celebrations now held on the Catholic feast days of All Saints and All Souls.
November 1st is the Day of the Little Angels, when the spirits of departed children visit their families. All children are considered innocent and ascend into heaven at death, to become angels and the souls of children are so eager to return they arrive a whole day ahead of the adults. They are welcomed with lots of candies, sugar skulls and their beloved toys.
The spirits of departed adults return on 2nd November and public celebrations include street parades, with participants in elaborate costumes wearing make-up or masks in the form of grinning skulls, the symbol of Lady Death. The colour for festivities is orange and Marigold flowers abound, forming garlands and decorations for people, food, altars, graves and streets.
As with the little angels, the spirits are welcomed in family homes and at grave sites with small altars decorated with photographs of the dead, lighted candles, food that the person loved and enjoyed when they were alive, such as corn, tamales, chocolate, caramel flan and a special Pan de Muerto, baked for the day of festivities. This bread of the dead is flavoured with sugar, anise seeds and orange zest. and typically made in a particular shape, with pieces forming a cross to symbolize the bones of the dead, while on top is a small ball, which some say is a teardrop, representing the tears shed.
The food and the Pan de Muerto is an offering made to the departed loved one, whose spirit is nourished by the “essence” of the offerings, while the family members are physically nourished by eating the bread and other food.
Ultimately the celebration is a happy one, for while a departed child is a sad loss, the family has gained an angel and the adult departed remain a part of the family, as they are only truly dead when they are forgotten. xx
A Funeral Feast
Death never really intruded into my world until I was about 18 when I drove my father to the funeral of his brother. Even then, as I got lost driving around the streets of suburban Brisbane, we only went to the wake which seemed like a family get together with cakes and beer. Nothing remotely like the Mexican Day of the Dead festivities happened in my immediate family nor in the culture I was raised in; Once a person died and was buried, it was an exception for anyone to even visit a grave let alone remember the dead on a regular basis.
Thinking about my own funeral, the wake and the menu that should be served; developing a menu would need to take into account today’s community idea of what constitutes a wake and the expectation that the executor of the estate would opt for the cocktail function approach, rather than a full blown feast; The latter would be rather fun, but would possibly be difficult to bring off - while a catering firm could do such a feast there always seems to be a too “professional” touch, at least not fitting with my (current) idea of entertaining people with a banquet cooked at home. Plus on the personal front the lack of anyone really close with the capability and willingness to take the responsibility of hosting and cooking such a funeral feast.
As well, an awareness that …good food has a remarkable potential to cut through our existential anxieties and… as our hearts and minds tell us all is dreadful, our mouths can whisper ‘Yes, but the pizza is still delicious.’... xxi
My preference would be that the food served at my wake reflected my enjoyment of eating, including particular tastes, textures and styles. So a menu for the food to be served has been developed from various likes and food habits. A process that was best started in looking at celebrations such as Christmas. Where the main dish for my Christmas is, invariably, duck with a fruit sauce, whichever fruit is ready for picking in the garden, and the wine, in that great South Australian tradition, a cold sparkling red wine on a summer day, is usually Seppelt’s Vintage Sparkling Shiraz.
Favoured foods are usually served simply and can incorporate spices and flavours from various cultural traditions; to take the duck as an example, rather than using a direct French influence, combining this with Chinese and Mexican influences would reflect my home style of cooking; wherein a serve would consist of small portions of crisp skin and rare meat from pan /grilled breast along with a slight touch of poached fruit, wrapped in pancakes that have a hint of anise and orange, as in the Mexican Pan de Muerto.
Menu items can also be developed from a list of foods and influences that I love, which could include : Chinese, Mediterranean, seafood, hand cut chips, eggplant, rhubarb, olives, cheese, oat biscuits, olive oil, sourdough bread and fresh fruit.
The following proposed menu was developed from these ideas. It was then tested, by Michael Guiliano and Max Dingle in September 2024, to great success. The recipes prepared, cooked and flavourings adjusted. xxii A number of sparkling red wine varieties were tasted; during the course of which it was discovered that handmade dumplings, even if the shapes and contents started varying considerably, do not lose their appeal, in fact everything seemed to improve in line with the number of wines tasted.
Funeral Food - Menu for a Wake
Waiter Service:
Deep fried tripe
(Thin strips of very tender, honeycomb tripe, cooked a la Lyonnaise or Chinese (ginger, green onion, Anise, Soy) dipped in tempura batter and deep fried )
Hand-cut Chips
(Deep fried served in small newspaper cups)
Beetroot dumplings
(Smashed beetroot, salted butter, finely grated rind of an orange, pepper, gow gee pastry - Steamed)
Pea and prawn dumplings
(Mashed peas, diced prawn, salted garlic butter, dash of lemon juice, gow gee pastry - Steamed)
Spiced eggplant dumplings
(Eggplant puree, salt, pepper, sumac, touch of chilli, gow gee pastry - Fried)
Duck pancakes
(Thinly sliced pan / grilled rare Duck breasts, a touch of poached seasonal fruit eg blackberry or plum, wrapped in anise and orange pancakes)
Rhubarb Custard Tarts
(Shortcrust pastry, layer of roast rhubarb covered in Greek Galaktoboureko )
Sparkling Red wine
Self serve :
Olives
Whole Brie with oat biscuits
Platters of fresh fruit
(one of watermelon cubes with raspberries, strawberries dressed in a light rosewater sugar syrup, one of sweet orange segments.)
Funeral Biscuits
( Almond shortbread biscuits - in small boxes, each box with a limited edition inkjet print; from the Funeral Series – Emotional Body by Max Dingle - Consisting of 12 works each in an edition of 3 prints) xxiii
Coffee, tea, water
NOTES
i Anon Bible, King James Version Ecclesiastes 7:2-3
ii https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2012-16&version=NIV Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal… No one will offer food to comfort those who mourn for the dead—not even for a father or a mother—nor will anyone give them a drink to console them.
iii Homer The Iliad 1950 Penguin
iv Herodotus The Histories 1960 Penguin Classics
v https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tuta/hd_tuta.htm 2010 Dorothea Arnold
vi https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Funus.html Roman Funerals
vii Woolgar Chris Eating, drinking and the dead in late medieval England 2019 Journal : Leidschrift Vol 34 Scholarly Publications Leiden University
viii https://victorianmonsters.wordpress.com/victorian-funerary-practices/
ix https://www.morbidoutlook.com/nonfiction/articles/2003_04_vicdeath.html
x Frisby Helen Victorian Funeral Food Customs 2019 Victorian Review Vol 45 No 2 John Hopkins University
xi Joyce James Dubliners 1956 Penguin
xii Gittings Clare & Jupp Peter Death in England 1999 Manchester University Press
xiii Lysaght, Patricia, Hospitality at wakes and funerals in Ireland 17th -19th Century 2003 Folklore Journal
xiv Lysaght, Patricia, Hospitality at wakes and funerals in Ireland 17th -19th Century 2003 Folklore Journal
xv https://blackthornandstone.com/2020/05/28/dancing-with-death-a-short-history-of-funeral-feasts-merry-wakes/ Dr Romany Reagan
xvi https://austhrutime.com/aboriginal_mortuary_rites_platform.htm W H Munroe
xvii https://peuplesautochtones.com/inuit-people-funeral-rites/
xviii https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634615221135423
xix Yoder Lonnie The Funeral Meal 1986 Journal of Religion and Health Vol 25 No 2 Springer
xx Max Dingle OAM Death Love – Art 2023 Exhibition text, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery
xxi Julian Baggini The Virtues of the Table 2014 Granta Publications
xxii As both people involved in the test cooking were experienced cooks, no detailed written recipes were used or noted, as ingredients and cooking times for all items on the menu were considered self evident. In retrospect, rather than doing almost everything from scratch, there are a few prepared ingredients that can be purchased from a good grocery or supermarket, especially those specialising in Asian foods – BBQ duck, Dim Sum cooked honeycomb tripe, dumpling wrappers, frozen pastry, biscuits, oat and shortbread.
xxiii Fave Dei Morti
These traditional Italian cookies are not just reserved for funerals, but they are also baked every November 2 – All Souls’ Day – and are meant to serve as transport for the souls of the dead.
Ingredients
· 7 ounces (200 grams) almonds or almond meal
· 3/4 cups (100 grams) flour
· 1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar
· 1 medium-large egg
· 2 tablespoons (30 grams) butter
· 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
· 1 shot Grappa ( brandy, rum, gin or other is OK)
1. Combine all the ingredients together until you have a smooth, compact dough. If it is too crumbly, add some warm water, a very little bit at a time until the dough comes together.
2. Roll walnut-sized pieces of dough into balls and place on a lined baking tray. Flatten each ball into a disc and bake at 350°F for 10-15 minutes or until dry to the touch and hardened but not too browned. Once cool, keep in an air tight container.
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