By Pingnova - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=139148905
I’ve been thinking a lot about death recently. A very good friend’s brother died unexpectedly and a co-worker’s adult child passed away after months of declining, so it makes sense that I’ve been thinking about the community that surrounds a person in the hardest of times. When the time comes for me to receive well wishes and meals and gift cards to the fancy grocery store, I hope I can accept it all as freely and warmly as the people I know these last few weeks.
A lot of beloved people in my life have died. My paternal grandparents, who I loved so much, both passed away before I got married. One of my swim coaches died while I was in high school and so did the high school band director in my small town. Like many rural small town teenagers, I had friends get into car accidents and die due to reckless driving and/or drunk driving. I have been to my fair share of funerals, with lots of practice getting through grief. It doesn’t mean that it is easier for me when a death happens, but I know what to do with the feeling.
In most cultures, there is food before, during, and after the ritual of a funeral or wake. It’s no different in the Upper Midwest, where most often church basements are filled with tables and tables of food for the people who have lost someone. If the deceased wasn’t religious, there is usually still a table somewhere: a garage, a backyard deck, a kitchen island laid out with fare to get you through a terrible time.
I think about all that a space like that has held, and the hands that have made and arranged the food for a funeral. When my grandpa died, one of my best friends came to keep me company. I had just started to date my now-husband and the relationship felt too new to bring him up to the U.P. for the event. My friend spent nearly the whole time (besides the service and checking in on me every half hour) in the fellowship hall with the church ladies, preparing trays of food, doing dishes, and chatting away. If it wasn’t my grandpa’s funeral, that’s where I would have preferred to be too - working on getting things just right to nourish those I could who were still with us Earth-side.
It’s important in the Upper Midwest, and maybe everywhere, who is preparing the food. It might be the women’s guild of a church, the extended family members, or people who cherished the person who died. It’s usually women, and the multigenerational knowledge shared is so special. These people know how important it is to have the right ratio of desserts to snacks to proteins, and to know how to set up a buffet line for maximum efficiency. The food is something that can soothe and nourish in one of the hardest times in a person’s life, and I think that is so special.
Essential Midwest Funeral Foods
In order of the buffet line:
Pickles / Relish Tray: If this is at a midwest funeral, you are so lucky. Homemade pickles are so special because you just know that they come from a house where the pickle maker has been doing it for decades. Beware of sweet pickles though - there tends to be at least one in the lineup. I like sweet pickles (bread & butter pickles), but it is a little jarring when you expect crisp dill and instead get a sour-sweet crunch. There may also be a raw veggie tray in or around the pickles, paired with a dip.
Sloppy Joes: Listen, it feeds a crowd and gives a protein option besides the cold deli sandwiches. I personally would be okay with never eating a sloppy joe again for the rest of my life because it was one of the standard meals in the rotation growing up.
Funeral potatoes: The creamy dreamy staple. You can find a bunch of recipes for these online. Most include corn flakes on top that crisp up in the oven.
Homemade Chex Mix or Gardetto’s: The bulk bags from Costco or Sam’s Club will do but I’m going back for seconds if it’s homemade and served out of the largest Tupperware bowl you’ve ever seen.
This Tupperware bowl lives in so many homes in the Upper Midwest
Jell-o Salads: Truly endless variety here. They will likely have canned fruit in them, and Cool Whip, and maybe coconut. If you’re lucky there’s a strawberry one, an orange one, and a pistachio one with mini marshmallows.
Bar Tray: I wrote about bar trays in one of my first Substack posts. Read all about it here. A variety of fruity and confectionary bars are essential to a Midwest gathering - funerals included. The linked post has my mom’s Scotcheroo recipe in it which I very rarely give out so check that out and write it down! You’ll thank me later.
Beverages: There has to be regular and decaf coffee with dried creamer powder, sugar, and tiny straws and stir sticks. There’s also usually some sort of juice and/or lemonade
Whether it’s Minnesota sushi or funeral potatoes, the rare thing that can bring some comfort during grief is a stocked funeral food spread. I, for one, think that we do a pretty good job of it up here in the Deep North.
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This was lovely, and I will absolutely demolish a container of homemade chex mix, which is why I don't allow myself to make it anymore.