Excuses to eat, Part 2

Yesterday was Mardi Gras, or for the Catholics among us, Fat Tuesday. This has religio-historically been a day celebrating all you can eat to fatten up for the next 40 days of Lenten fasting and sacrifice. Great idea, isn't it? Eat and drink like a pig for ONE day inorder to fast for 40 DAYS!! Kind of feels a little off balance if you ask me.
Anyway.
I got to think about all the other days that we eat, aside from the holidays mentioned in a previous blog.
First, there's your birthday, typically commemorated by a huge fattening and delicious cake to celebrate another year thrusting you into old age. Special birthdays get tagged here too, specifially your "Sweet"16, and 21st, not to mention 30th, 4oth and then 50th, all celebrated using food and spirits (booze!) in some way to excess.
Then there's high school and college graduation, again, typically passed with a party, cake and alcohol.
Weddings, the arrivals of babies, and anniversaries bring their own compliments of over-indulgence in the food category, but all typically do have a celebratory cake to go along with the passing of the day. Here you really graduate to Champagne, tho, forgoing the cheaper spirits.
And let's not forgot the somber events that cause us to eat.
I remember a time a close friend of mine injured her arm and the first thing I thought to do was make a tray of baked Ziti to take to her house so she wouldn' t have to worry about cooking for her family for a few days with a bum arm.
WHen someone passes away, almost the first thing neighbors and fellow mourners do is bring food to the house just in case the bereaved didn't have time to shop, or cook a cow. And it' s not just any food. MOurning food is an entity unto itself. People who wouldn' t dare make a pimento loaf, or macaroni casserole during normal times, seem compelled to put forth their efforts into unusual and sometimes disgusting dishes during times of personal sorrow.
Mourning food can fall into several categories as well. There's the "just died food", where neighbors descend enmass the minute they hear about the passing, with overflowing, srange smelling Corell dishes covered with aluminum wrap. Then there's the "wake food," usually cookies, or something sweet and hot to drink to help the mourners get through the hours of funeral home sitting.
At last we have the "burial food." This one has always been a mystery to me. After crying, wailing and mourning for days, the family and friends of the lost soul gather at the survivors' home to mourn and eat some more as a toast and testament to the dearly departed. This is casserole karma. There is a certain generation of folks among us who have come to feel about wakes they used to feel about weddings. It's almost a celebration for them, and I guess I can understand it in one way : they are celebrating the fact that they are still alive.
But does it have to be celebrated with a green jello mold, stuffed with marshmallows?