Let's Eat Cake
Historical mourning snacks and the ingredients of comfort.
Tiny Ghost, Big Feels // Dispatches from the fine print of everyday emotions
002 - September 2025
💌 Status update: Harnessing autumn by tidying and cleaning my desk, yet again.
🎧 Currently listening: "Letting Go" by Angie McMahon because the repeating refrain of 'It's okay, it's okay, make mistakes, make mistakes' lands just so.
💬 Discussed: Mourning snacks and tiny acts of care
In my family, we don't really talk about death or dying. Funerals are not a part of the landscape. You are here, until you are not here; most family members just request "nothing" in regards to a closure, remembrance, or burial.
When my maternal grandfather passed away in 2001, the same was true. However, that evening we all gathered in the living room with takeout Chinese food. Sharing nostalgia and stories over egg rolls and stir-fry containers is the closest thing I've ever experienced to a family ritual around death.
Let’s Eat Cake & Talk About Death
Food holds so much nourishment and symbolism. A way to communicate, "I am sorry for your loss." Food plays a central role in how we mark special occasions. The food we eat when we're sad is a category unto itself, and so it is not shocking that funeral food is its own subcategory. Food can be linked to status, to identity, and to be a way of storing cultural memories (Graham, 2017).
I'll bring the snacks.
Funeral feasts held in honour of the dead date back beyond recorded history. Offering food was a practicality in instances where mourners might have travelled great distances to attend. In modern times, the food served can also reflect that which was favoured by the deceased. Something nourishing and familiar in an unfamiliar and jarring setting can also help remind you of a sense of self and identity (Graham, 2017).
Funeral Potatoes:
Potentially also known as potato casserole or Mormon potatoes, (as they are prominent in predominantly LDS-populated areas of Utah and Idaho, where the dish likely originated). There's this great NPR article with some historical background.
While there are variations on the theme (and contests to see which family recipe triumphs!), it is potatoes, a creamy soup base, cheese, and a crispy butter-mixed topping (often breadcrumbs or corn flakes). A real crowd pleaser in a casserole dish form and so iconic that they were featured on a pin for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics (Brien, 2013).
If you're feeling motivated, here is one take from a beautifully worn recipe card: Aunt Maurine's recipe.
Funeral Pie:
Also called molasses pie. It's essentially a Mennonite raisin pie, dating back a few hundred year! Traditionally, a flaky, lard-based crust with a sweet dark filling of raisins, sugar, lemon, egg and flour.
Prepared for friends and family following the service, as a reminder that there is still sweetness in the world even during a time of grief. Before refrigeration, fresh fruit was not readily available but dried fruit was usually on hand so the pie could be made year-round, kept well and baked a day or two ahead of the funeral without a fuss. Keep in mind, at the time making raisins would mean painstakingly removing the grade seeds and stems by hand, so the end result of a pie that used about a pound of the dried fruit would be truly made with love.
And on and on...
There are so many paths to explore in this regard: the food served at the funeral, the dishes you bring to someone in mourning. The different cultural takes on what types of ingredients equate comfort and warmth: Iranian halva, Estonian cabbage rolls, Jamaican goat curry, Swedish glögg. Some are not solely reserved for funerals but any gathering of importance (Carvaly, 2023).
See you on the internet.
(your tiny ghost in residence)
—Allison
Resources:
- Brien, D. L. (2013). “Concern and sympathy in a pyrex bowl”: Cookbooks and funeral foods. M/C Journal, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.655
- Carvaly, A. (2023, May 3). Mortician in the kitchen. https://www.morticianinthekitchen.com/recipe-blog/swedish-funeral-food-and-customs
- Graham, J. (2017). Feasting with death: A study of funeral-food practices [Doctoral Thesis]. https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/feasting-with-death-a-study-of-funeral-food-practices