Dining with the Dead
[A slightly edited version of a piece I originally published on October 31st, 2015]
Every year of the fifteen I lived in Mexico I enjoyed seeing graves decorated with flowers, families taking food to eat with the dead, and the othe customs surrounding the the Day of the Dead. That said, I could not help feeling a little tetchy about the widely-held assumption in the United States that all Mexicans observed the Day of the Dead and that eating at gravesites in memory of the dead was something uniquely Mexican.
I have very happy memories of families going to the graveyard with their flowers and their food in rural towns in Mexico.
Not everyone in Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead however. Although the custom is becoming more popular year by year, there are many groups at different social levels who do not.
For example, a splendiferous altar appeared at the security guards’ entry cabin to apartment complex where we lived for several years in Mexico City. Jorge Hernández, the security guard who assembled it explained, “we never celebrated the Day of the Dead in my part of the country. I didn’t learn about it until I came to Mexico City.”
But Jorge was a dab hand at creating wonderful decorations from trash he collected around the buildings (Christmas was good too). Creating the altar lessened the tedium of raising and lowering the security bar hour after hour as people came and went.
Moreover the custom of celebrating the dead with food in cemeteries is far from exclusively Mexican, as I am sure many of you know.
In Hawaii, where I lived for ten years, the American Japanese took food and drink (soda, beer, whiskey or sake depending on the taste of the deceased) to the tomb.
The American Chinese celebrated Ching Ming in May, carrying firecrackers, paper money, and whole roast pigs into the graveyards.
In Britain and the United States in the late nineteenth century, cemeteries were created on the outskirts of towns with the idea that they would be parks as well as graveyards.
My mother, whose father died in the flu epidemic of 1918, happily reminisced about how her mother would pack a picnic and they would go off to spend an afternoon cleaning the grave, putting in new plants, and chatting to neighbors as they nibbled on their sandwiches and drank lemonade.
So if Mexicans have a “special relationship with death” as is often said, it’s not enough to just point to a day when families visit gravesites and remember the dead, often with food and flowers. And it’s even less adequate to assume that this flows from some assumed national character.
If this is a subject that interests you, Death and the Idea of Mexico by the distinguished Mexican anthropologist and Columbia Professor, Claudio Lomnitz, is a wonderful read. He offers a fascinating, nuanced account of the changing links between the state, nationalism, and death over the course of Mexican history.
Lomnitz’s book raises questions about the state, nationalism, and death in other nations.
Meantime, although I am no believer in the after life, I do think it is appropriate to remember the dead. So perhaps next time I am in England I will pack the sardine sandwiches, potato chips, and hard cider that we ate on outings with my parents. And I will sit between their gravestones on the steep slope overlooking the stream that runs through the village and the footbridge that leads to the church.
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While I’m at it, here’s a post on the likely early-twentieth century Spanish origins of pan de muerto.
And another on the golden fruit tejocote that ripens around the Day of the Dead.
I never ate at a cemetery in my Oklahoma home, but on Memorial Day in the United States (at least my part of it) it was very common to visit graves, then have a weenie roast immediately afterward in the backyard.
Yes, I think that was the subsequent stage to this common custom.
Do it Rachel. When you’re in England next time.
A beautifull post.
I am sure you know the writer Malcolm Lowry and his book: Under the vulcano.
For the people who still want to bake a pan de muerto, I described one on my web (sorry, in Dutch) here
http://www.wiebaktmee.nl/pandemuerto,%20dodenbrood/dodenbrood%20uit%20mexico.html
Thanks, Ineke. And I will.
Rachel,
Growing up in the south east of India, in the city of Madras (now, Chennai), I remember many days in the year when the dead were honored with a meal. The day typically corresponded to the death anniversary but there were also other occasions.
The association between remembering the dead and food across cultures is interesting.
Bala
Interesting Bala. As you will see in the following comment, Ruchira Paul makes a distinction between dining with the dead and dining for the dead. Your meals would fall in the second category, right? Obviously there is not a sharp distinction.
Yes, Rachel, I was referring to dining for the dead, but including meals organized every year in addition to those that would follow a death. Families and friends gathered to recreate the dead with stories, mostly during the death anniversary but also on other occasions. There was also a habit of plating small portions of a meal for the birds to eat before beginning meals, the thought being the birds symbolized the dead. We would call out to the birds, and regardless of what it may actually mean, it was a moment thought to create some form of communication.
I also recall the chapter on China, in Paul Freedman’s book on the history of taste, describing the association between food and the dead.
Calling out to the birds is a lovely image. And yes, associations between food and the dead are very, very widespread.
I cannot think of any custom in India where people eat “with” the dead. I am talking about the Hindus here, the majority community. That may well be because Hindus cremate their dead and wash the ashes away in a river or stream. There are no physical memorials built for those who have passed, unless they are extremely eminent public figures. But Indians do eat “for” the dead. A large feast for friends and family is quite common to commemorate the dead a couple of weeks after cremation.
Wonderful article. It is healthy to include the memory of the dead in our daily routine. Keeps our own lives in perspective.
Thanks for that distinction, Ruchira. And as you know, going to the cemetery is now much rarer in the United States as so many people here are cremated. I think the habit had begun to slip before cremation became common, however.
In modern Greece, there are many food-related rituals connected with death: most common are the coffee, biscuits, and brandy served immediately following the funeral service. Then, according to custom, now more common in rural areas, a meal of fish soup and wine is served after the funeral either in the family home or a taverna. A ritual dish of KOLLYVA – boiled wheat grains, with origins in ancient Greece is brought to the grave site on the 3rd and 9th days after the death. Blessed by the priest, some is eaten by family members and remainder scattered for the birds before the serving platter is broken [ symbolizing the breaking away of the spirit from the remains of the dear departed.] On the 40-day memorial service, a more elaborate KOLLYVA is made by mixing the boiled wheat with raisins, pomegranate seeds, nuts, parsley, spices, sugar. This mixture is mounded on a decorative tray, sprinkled heavily with white icing sugar and adorned with silver dragees, and sugar flowers and initials of the deceased and is served to mourners right after memorial service. Often [again in villages] a meal of ground meat and macaroni pasta is served, usually the well-known Greek pasticchio. It is thought the word MACARONIA is derived from the ancient Greek MACARONE, which evolved into the modern MAKARIOS, meaning the dear, beloved departed individual. The NISON TON MACARON were the ancient mythological Isles of the Blessed where heros and worthy individuals were sent after death.
These customs obviously have very ancient roots all over the Mediterranean Basin. Undoubtedly the Spanish took them to the New World where they met with the established rituals of the natives. We could go on and on with various local, regional customs still practiced in the Greece and the regions once ruled by the ancient Graeco-Roman -Byzantine empires. I thought this might be of interest to those unfamiliar with Greek Orthodox customs. PS I hope this analysis will not upset your Italian readers.
Thanks for this Linda. Interesting both about the sequence of meals associated with death and for the theory about the origins of macaroni.
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I grew up in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Estonia, with roughly half the population Lutheran, half Russian Orthodox, and everybody posing as good Soviet Atheists. Both religions have their own cemeteries with several Cemetery Sundays. While the Lutheran ones have always been mostly about “my grave gardening is better than yours”, the R.O. often spend the whole day at the family plot, having a lavish picnic with all the vodka they think they can hold. If you have a Granny buried R.O. and need to have a vodka-infused picnic you can always celebrate any family occasion or Mothers` Day or whatever on the grave, just remember to bring fresh flowers and clean up after yourself. And yes, we are having a get-together with dear Granny — not for her.
Ganna, your comment has stunning immediacy. I’ve never been to Estonia, let alone an R.O. graveyard, but now I have the clearest image of one in my mind. Thanks for writing.