Tom Junod wrote a thought-provoking article in the March 2011 issue of Esquire magazine titled "The Last Supper: A Few Thoughts on What They'll Eat When You Die." Thought-provoking to me, anyway, as a lover of food.
I didn't find an on-line version of the piece to link to (it's worth the cover piece for this article alone, though) but in the article he riffs on the notion of Funeral Food (and yes, I concur that it deserves initial caps) about which he says: "Indeed there is an inevitability about Funeral Food that completes the inevitability of the funeral itself. You can't get away from it, any more than you can get away with it, and if you do, you end up displaced -- deracinated -- at the very moment you are said to have 'come home.'"
First, mad props to TJ for the use of "deracinated," second, it got me wondering what people might be serving up -- and scarfing down -- after I've shuffled off this mortal coil. I don't think of it as macabre, but strangely comforting, to think not of the foodstuffs that define you (that's easy: jambalaya and cheeseburgers come to mind) but that are the reflexive comfort food of your tribe upon your passing.
Whatever it turns out to be, part of me hopes it ends up tasting just a bit funny.
-- Adam
Photo: Pineapple upside-down "cakelets." Credit: Adam Tschorn, 2010
First, mad props to TJ for the use of "deracinated," second, it got me wondering what people might be serving up -- and scarfing down -- after I've shuffled off this mortal coil. I don't think of it as macabre, but strangely comforting, to think not of the foodstuffs that define you (that's easy: jambalaya and cheeseburgers come to mind) but that are the reflexive comfort food of your tribe upon your passing.
Whatever it turns out to be, part of me hopes it ends up tasting just a bit funny.
-- Adam
Photo: Pineapple upside-down "cakelets." Credit: Adam Tschorn, 2010
