I’m a recovered picky eater.
My early years lent themselves to meals of little flavor or extravagance. For dinner, a simple bowl of buttered fusilli noodles or Jasmine rice often found a seat at my placemat.
But one dish with slightly more gusto always excited me. The understated potatoes au gratin.
Growing up with a mother from Utah, potatoes were a staple in my household. With a simple layer of cheese and sprinkle of light thyme seasoning, Potatoes au gratin became a quick comfort food option when she worked late.
Except we called this recipe something else in my household. We called them “funeral potatoes.”
I’m an only child, but my mom comes from a large, overwhelmingly religious family. My cousins, while usually several years my senior, became my fill-in brothers and sisters. I was the youngest grandchild of my mother’s siblings and am often still lovingly referred to as “baby Rachel.” But being so much younger than the rest of my big family ushered in another reality of life: experiencing death early on.
In the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, funerals are often elaborate events. There’s the viewing, the service, the wake and, of course, the buffet.
My family’s funerals were always celebrations of life. They were a chance to get together in remembering someone special, all over a delicious meal.
As a kid, these moments of emotional connection struck me.
I remember watching my mother embrace my aunt at my grandfather’s wake. They cried and laughed and scooped a heaping portion of green bean casserole onto each other’s teetering platters in the buffet line. I thought it was beautiful — that all three of those things could happen at the same time.
While the buffet meals often changed, one dish always appeared without fail. My cousins and I slopped massive scoops of the funeral potatoes onto our Dixie brand paper plates. We’d test the amount each plate could hold, and whooped with excitement as they sagged under the weight of mozzarella, parmesan and gruyere.
At the kids table we dug in.
The boys shoveled their potato slices quickly, plate and lip always connected by at least one straggling string of mozzarella cheese.
Us girls approached our meals a little slower. With a meticulous eye, we plucked the tiny thyme leaves out, one by one, before finally giving up and following the boy’s suit.
I grew up in the Bay Area and while I spent many of my school breaks in Utah, I always felt a small sense of removal from the rest of my family. These funerals were a place to reconnect in a more vulnerable way. They were moments of love, despair, joy and gregariousness — each emotion like a separate layer of potato, bubbling about in my beloved buffet dish.
No matter how far we strayed from our home in Utah, we remained connected, like a string of mozzarella cheese.
The funeral potatoes always brought us back together.