Dining with the Dead

The Food Chain

• Episode: Dining with the Dead
• Website: The Food Chain
• Feed URL: https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p028z2z0.rss
• Duration: 00:26:29
• Published: 2016-10-29 10:00

Food is a fundamental part of life’s biggest celebrations, from birthdays and weddings to religious feasts. It’s also a key part of death.

This week, we hear how saying farewell to the departed has inspired centuries of food tradition, from corpse cakes and sin-eating in medieval Europe, to the pan de muertos and sugar skulls of Mexico's Day of the Dead.

We visit a Death Cafe in London to find out how food and drink help end the taboos around discussing grief and loss, and we go graveside feasting in Estonia, where family meals include the departed.

Plus, how funeral food extravagance is driving families into enormous debt in Ghana.

(Picture: Chocolate skulls prepared for Mexico's Day of The Dead celebrations)