What Do You Eat at a Funeral?

“Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you who you are.” De Toqueville? Brillat-Savarin? Some French observer, one way or the other.

My father died last Saturday. He’d been sick and with no hope of getting better, it was not unexpected. It just happened sooner than we thought. We flew to Sunrise, FL for the funeral on Sunday, where my brother and sister had made arrangements for the after funeral gathering. I’d thought pastrami and corned beef, but they’d already decided on fish so the kosher could eat and have coffee.

Trays of lox, baked salmon, sablefish, a whitefish stuffed with whitefish mousse. A separate tray of tuna, egg salad, herring salad. My aunt insisted we hardboil some eggs so everyone in the family could eat one (life following death). Four dozen bagels. A separate tray of rugalah, danish, almond cookies, coconut cookies, Jewish cannoli (sugar cookie dough wrapped around raspberry or chocolate filling). Scallion and regular cream cheese. Trays of onion, tomato, cucumber.

We ate it for two days, except for the Italian food my sister-in-law brought in one night. Sablefish, an oily pure white smoked fish, is hard to get in New England. It reminded me of family gatherings when I was a boy, and by extension, my father, my mother, and I looked back on a family with the eyes of an adult.

Who are we? New Yorkers. Jews. A family. A collection of memories and an uncertain future. Adults where we were once children.