Question: What is the connection between the living and the dead?
Answer: Cake. (This is, after all, Scotland.)
The daintiest tea I have ever partaken of was at a funeral purvey at the Tontine Hotel, Greenock; though, sadly, no one ate anything, and so neither could I.
At Hallowe’en, guisers traditionally exchange songs for gifts of food.
Fiona Mackenzie writes of South Uist: “There’s a lot of food involved in Samhain too, both as a feast day for yourself but also to leave food out for the spirits.”
A place was set at table to welcome the souls of dead relatives. Food for Hallowe’en included a pudding shared by the family, with a silver sixpence, a thimble and a button hidden inside.
In living memory in South Wales, the practice of sin-eating was still known. A full meal would be set on top of the coffin, and a simple person from another community would be seated to eat it there.
The entrances to the first Kilmartin cairns suggest that the living went in and out, among the dead. Perhaps they brought them out too. We can be sure that in these ceremonies food was involved. And beer.
Hospitality is the virtue that binds human beings together: food and drink signs love.
Our hearts tell us that love transcends the abrupt gulf of death; and this we sign with food.
Love calls all humanity, and all this beautiful created order, into a Communion of love.
And this we do with bread and wine. It is the Divine Lover, Jesus, who feeds us with his own Body and Blood, breaking the boundaries of death, with bread and wine.
Reverend Canon Simon Mackenzie, Lochgilphead Scottish Episcopal Church.