When food prompts precious memories
Sharing familiar meals helps bring us closer to loved ones who’ve died
My sister-in-law, Diane, was famous for packing her blender for the drive to Florida each year.
We’d sit together with our toes dipped in the sand, drinking frosty margaritas while the kids played in the ocean.
The last time I saw her, she served up tart margaritas with her bald head wrapped in a brightly coloured scarf.
She’d just started chemotherapy treatments that summer for breast cancer, and by the following March, Diane was gone.
When the first anniversary of Diane’s death arrived, of course we drank margaritas — it was an attempt to somehow feel Diane’s presence among us.
“Sharing food they loved can be a very tangible way to feel close to them,” says Litsa Williams, a social worker who specializes in grief and bereavement.
For some, it might be making Dad’s favourite beef Stroganoff or visiting the pub where your brother hung out.
Growing up in a Greek Orthodox church in Albany, N.Y., Victoria Lord was no fan of kolyva, a mixture served at church on the anniversary of a parishioner’s death.
“As I grew older, I understood it was a reminder that life goes on and that life is sweet.”
“Food constantly brings us back to our loved ones, nurturing ourselves through the loss,” says Tembi Locke, author of From Scratch (Simon & Schuster, 2019), about her husband, Sicilian chef Saro Gullo, who died in 2012.
On the first anniversary of Gullo’s death, Locke cooked fava beans that he’d planted in their garden. Unsure of how to prepare the beans, Locke called her mother-in-law in Sicily for instructions, sharing a taste memory that spanned continents.
Meanwhile, bowls of rice lined the altar at the Van-hanh Buddhist Temple in Centreville, Va., at a ceremony marking the 49th day after Tam Do’s death. Do’s cousin, Vietnamese chef Germaine Loc Swanson, says the food rituals surrounding death anniversaries in Vietnamese culture create continuity between the living and their ancestors, providing a taste of the ingredients that have sustained generations.
“In our tradition,” Swanson says, “the dead are always with us, they hear our prayers, they are there at the table. We feel their presence no matter how much time has passed.”
Swanson prepared a feast of favourite dishes for her cousin, including fresh summer rolls.