19 September 2012 – The Good Funeral Guide

The best funeral potatoes in Utah

19 September 2012

Charles

2 Comments

Categories: funeral food

Congratulations, Laurie Willberg, from the hurriedly assembled team here at the GFG-Batesville Shard. Well done!

Laurie, dear reader, is the winner of Utah’s Own Funeral Potato at the Utah State Fair. Her funeral potatoes were the best in show.

Funeral potatoes are unknown in the UK but de rigueur at US funerals where the need for comfort/consolation food after the obsequies is better understood.

Americans don’t devour funeral potatoes only after funerals, they eat them whenever the mood takes them. Probably not ideal for someone watching their weight, but ideal for throwing down the hatch of a teenage boy.

For your delectation:

Southwest funeral potatoes (with Utah ingredients)

8 medium Russet potatoes

1/2 teaspoons sea salt (Redmond brand)

1 cup dry potato soup mix (Sawyer’s Premium)

2 cups water, boiling

1 cup low fat buttermilk (Meadow Gold)

1 cup sour cream (Meadow Gold)

2 cups grated jalapeno jack cheese (Banquet brand)

1/2 teaspoon sea salt (Redmond brand)

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

11/2 cup crushed yellow corn tortilla chips (Don Julio brand)

1 cup grated cheddar cheese (Banquet brand)

1 jar black bean and corn salsa (Laurie’s Buffalo Gourmet)

Wash and scrub potatoes under cool water, place in a pot with enough water to generously cover. Add 1/2 teaspoons salt. Bring to a boil. Cook 30 minutes or until tender, but not soft. Remove potatoes from pot and place in a colander. Run cold water over potatoes to cool. When cool enough to handle, peel and dice into 1/2 inch cubes. Place in a large mixing bowl.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9-by-13-inch pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Place potato soup mix in a medium mixing bowl. Cover with boiling water, then whisk until smooth. Add buttermilk, sour cream, jalpeno jack cheese, salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Pour mixture over diced potatoes and stir gently until the potatoes are coated. Pour into prepared baking pan.

Place corn chips in a resealable plastic bag and crush. Combine crushed chips with grated cheddar cheese. Sprinkle chip/cheese mixture over the top of the potatoes in the bake pan. Bake uncovered 45 minutes or until bubbly and cheese is slightly brown.

Remove from oven and cool slightly. Serve with salsa.

Serves 8 to 10

Source

Dig it shallow. They don’t.

19 September 2012

Charles

2 Comments

Categories: burial depth, funeral, natural burial

Filming the Good Funeral Awards with Sharp Jack Media, the production company making the documentary for Sky, entailed going all over the country to shoot people in action and get their backstories. It was fun. Perhaps the most fun was watching the crew on ‘just another job’ become emotionally enmeshed by the loveliness of the people they met. It was a life-changing process for them.

It was also exhausting and, from time to time, nailbiting.

Perhaps the nailbitingest moment came as they filmed a funeral in Devon followed by burial in Bidwell Woodland Burial Ground, a lovely place where you have to tote the coffin a good way to the grave. It’s hard work just trudging after it.

All went well at the outset. The funeral was in a village hall and it reduced one of the crew to tears even though it wasn’t an especially sad funeral because it was for a very old man who had led an incredibly rich and generous life. We set out for the burial ground in bright sunshine. It was a timeless sight.

The nailbiting bit came after the coffin had been lowered and it became evident that there was just a little over a foot between the top of the coffin and the surface. Local authority rules (not the law) prescribe a minimum of 2’ 6”, or 2’ where soil conditions allow. I had to have urgent discussions to determine whether it was wise, politic and in everyone’s best interests to film this. There could be protests and all sorts from them as knows best.

All agreed that it should be filmed. The owner of the burial ground, the richly characterful, serenely resolute and intelligent Andrew Lithgow, knows his law and believes that human burial must make good environmental sense. You don’t get the customary dark, cold, inert six feet under at Bidwell, you go back to nature usefully.

What about foxes, badgers, all sorts of foragers digging up the body? That’s what they all say happens, everybody says it. What do you do about that?

They don’t. As Andrew has it, why in heaven’s name would they want to dig up dead bodies? They’ve far better, fresher things to eat.

Another graveyard myth. So good to have that one knocked on the head. Burial depth in natural burial grounds has been, let’s confess it, a bit of an obsession here at the GFG. We are at rest now, enjoying our favourite song.

Keep calm and do the science

19 September 2012

Charles

4 Comments

Categories: Cryomation, resomation

Well-meaning ignorance fuels lots of heated debate in Funeralworld. Broadsides of stats are exchanged, but how many of them are verifiable? In one thing we can trust: probably no one’s yet done the science.

Take the following press release from the respected news agency Reuters:

Globally, cremation emits over 6.8 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, accounting for around 0.02 percent of world carbon dioxide emissions, experts estimate.

Typical. Authoritative-sounding stats undermined by the last two words. Substitute ‘some people guess’.

What follows, though, will interest those who have been following the freeze-dry saga and its two players, promession and its successor, cryomation. We’ve always been fans of the Cryomation people here at the GFG.

Suffolk-based Cryomation Ltd has developed a technology which freezes a body using liquid nitrogen until it is brittle, removes metal elements and turns the remains into a powder which could be composted, buried in a natural graveyard or scattered.

Having proven the technology, the firm is now seeking 1.5 million pounds to build the first unit.

We believe this to be correct.

“The cryomation process has been talked about for far too long but never been delivered,” said Paul Smith, business development manager at parent company IRTL.

Right, Paul. Yes, we can read between the lines!

“Our technology (..) can remove moisture at a cost-effective rate and at a suitable speed to make it a viable alternative to cremation with lots of environmental benefits,” he added.

Excellent. And the first part of the next sentence certainly rings true:

A report last year by Dutch research group TMO said resomation and cryomation had the lowest environmental impact of all funeral methods and burial had the highest.

What?!? Burial’s the worst of the lot??

Indeed, burial is not a “green” option. It takes up space underground, the decaying process emits the greenhouse gas methane and caskets use a lot of steel, copper, bronze or wood.

Think what we could do with all that underground space. As for methane, is this, someone please tell us, a graveyard myth? If it’s a myth it certainly once had me fooled but I think, am I right? that it’s been exploded. Does it actually pose any risk at all? If it does, the solution lies in ensuring that buried dead people enjoy aerobic decomposition by burying them nearer the surface. As for caskets, well, we needn’t bother ourselves with them, we’re mostly good ole toe-pincher people over here.

The effect of formaldehyde-based embalming chemicals when they leak into the soil and air through burial is also thought to be potentially damaging but needs more research.

Thought to be, eh? We’ll wait for them to finish their ‘more research’ if you don’t mind. Uttering hunches while they’re at it rather negates the point of doing it, yes? Surely it can’t be that flipping difficult to discover what happens to formaldehyde when it seeps into the earth.

If any reader can help us out with some verifiable facts in these areas, you’ll be doing us all a great kindness.

Full story here