[Sca-cooks] Funeral foods ...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 6, 2006, at 12:09 PM, King's Taste Productions wrote:

> I'm going to make a guess here - warning - just a guess - that "pies
> left over from the funeral" were probably made from whatever was
> normally served from the kitchen during that season and according  
> to the
> wealth of the family.

I assume so. The line, as best as I can recall it, is:

"The funeral baked meats did coldly serve
the wedding supper"

> Foods that have to do with some part of the
> ceremony and/or the body are more specific, but foods to feed the
> mourners and funeral attendees would be more along the practical  
> lines.
> - end of guess -
> Christianna

There are surely any number of local funerary customs pertaining to  
food, from grave goods to apotropaics (devices to ward off evil). One  
source which touches on them (if backhandedly) is Paul Barber's  
"Vampires, Burial, And Death", which concerns the curiously complex  
relationship between funerary customs and superstitions about various  
revenant ghosties and ghoulies, and how they sort of feed off each  
other, each in turn. There are probably better general sources about  
funerary customs; that was just one I happen to be familiar with, and  
it's an excellent one, if it contains only a little bit of info on  
food as it pertains to all this. But some of what it does touch on is  
ritual cannibalism in various forms (just _let_ that body try to get  
up and walk around after the whole village has just eaten it!!!),  
customs like spilling bags of millet seed on the doorstep before  
bedtime, so any vampires intending to haunt their relatives will be  
compelled to stop and count every seed (in the dark!) before they can  
enter the house (I'm fairly convinced that whoever came up with The  
Count muppet on Sesame Street encountered this particular superstition).

In addition, there are probably specific local funerary recipes,  
things like black foods for mourners, or some such. I think there's  
some documentation for that in the Italian Renaissance literature.

As Christianna suggests, there are also some very basic  
practicalities involved: pies of the type described earlier are good  
because they keep for a long time if not cut into -- you can make  
them in advance, and keep them in the larder for whenever you need  
them (within reason). A lot of the funerary pot-luck "casserole-ey"  
items you see at people's homes after funerals probably have some  
inspiration in that basic concept.

Adamantius


>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sca-cooks-bounces+kingstaste=comcast.net at ansteorra.org
> [mailto:sca-cooks-bounces+kingstaste=comcast.net at ansteorra.org] On
> Behalf Of Christiane
> Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 12:01 PM
> To: Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius; Cooks within the SCA
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Funeral foods ...
>
>> Well, the first thing that comes to mind is Hamlet's little joke
>> about Gertrude and Claudius' wedding being so soon after the death of
>> Hamlet the Elder that they could recycle the leftover pies from the
>> funeral for the wedding feast...
>>
>> Adamantius
>
>
> I thought of that too. :-) So, what kinds of pies do you think were
> served? Were they just the typical everyday meat pies or "special"  
> pies?
>
> Gianotta (can't wait for the food scholarly debate)
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"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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