Ossa dei Morti
Bones of the Dead cookies:
2 1/2 cups flour
4 oz hazelnuts
4 oz almonds
2 cups sugar
2 egg whites
The juice of a lemon
Butter for greasing the cookie sheet
Flour for the cookie sheetBegin with a large bowl: combine the flour, egg whites, sugar, and lemon juice. Work in the nuts, leaving them whole, and continue kneading until you have a fairly firm dough.
Roll the ball of dough out with your hands on your work surface so as to obtain a snake; cut the snake into half-inch thick slices and shape the bit into bones with your hands.
Preheat your oven to 360°. Butter your cookie sheet, dust it with flour, lay the bones on it, and bake them for about 20 minutes. Let them cool before serving them.
Best served with sweet wine.
As the boundaries between the dead and the living dissolve this Dia de los Muertos, or Samhain, or All Souls' Day, or Time When We Are Surrounded by People Dressed as Skeletons... who or what will you be thinking of?
Well, I was thinking that you are supposed to be leaving out some sweets for your dead ancestors tonight, not living folks making as if they are eating the dead's bones. For shame, naughty girl. :-)
On the other hand, thinking on it more, is this some sort of mojo where if you symbolically eat their remains, they can finally rest? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, human body to plant food, plant to mouth, the cycle of life? Or is there something here that syncs with the "body of Christ" communion stuff?.....
October 31, 2007 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. Your cookies also can work as what art historians call "vanitas imagery," in short and in general, the ashes-to-ashes message presented this way: all things of this life are transient and vain, death and decay is always right around the corner. Twas quite the thing around the Renaissance period (and earlier) in Northern Europe.
Some might say that for one person with very deep pockets who also apparently doesn't mind entertwining irony with hypocrisy, there's a partial revival of the theme.
October 31, 2007 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what I hear you saying is... I should spend all day eating cookies and drinking grappa as an expression of love and respect for my ancestors?
Hmm, yes. I think you may be right.
:-)
November 1, 2007 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
More "feeding the ancestors":
November 1, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find that "ghosts with small mouths" image really kewl, can't get it out of my head.
November 2, 2007 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Today the vet called to say that they received the ashes of my beloved cat who died a week and a half ago.
Who does this job of cremating people's pets, I wonder?
What to do with the ashes? (Make cookies? Nah...)
So more questions if anyone feels like answering:
Have you ever had to decide on behalf of someone else (animal or human) what to do with their remains? If so, what did you end up doing? Would you say your decision was more about considerations of the living, considerations of the dead, or...
Have you given any thought to how you'd like your own remains to be treated/disposed of? Does it matter to you?
November 1, 2007 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: "Have you given any thought to how you'd like your own remains"
I have an affinity to the idea of burial, going back to the earth and becoming plant food. A simple pine box would be fine, or even just a shroud. I suspect that's because I am a relatively avid gardener of many years, and when you do that, you really get a respect for those cycles and the building blocks of life.
I've thought of this recently having lost one parent. They purchased some of those newly popular "stack 'em" mausoleum spaces and I find I really have an aversion to it, as I had already expected from visting the inside-church tombs of the famous over the years. The Egyptian thing just turns me off a bit, it seems so unnatural to have a decaying body sitting above ground. (Plus many of the new ones have a just plain tacky style to them.) But I would never express this to my one existing parent, it is their choice.
I like cemeteries and headstones, I find them peaceful and healing. They are for the living, they are places to help the living keep the dead alive in their minds and this comforts the living ala "life is not meaningless," one lives on in others memories. They show reapect for human life but they don't have the symbolic hubris of putting bodies in buildings above ground as if humans are something apart from the cycle of life. (I presume realizy is that most burial grounds will be gone after a time, after generations.)
Though my head knows rationally cremation is the future as with our population everyone cannot have a piece of earth for a couple of centuries until everyone who knew the dead is gone, it turns my heart off slightly. I think that's also because of my gardening predilections. The "gone in flash of fire" thing just doesn't seem natural. It pushes the shock of loss theme on the living, i.e., they are there one minute and gone the next. I've had acquaintances who have been cremated and I just find that a memorial service is just not the same as a wake/funeral with a body for the living to deal with grief. Of course, that's probably because I was raised in a culture where the wakes/funerals mostly are healthy healing events for family and friends, possibly better than many of the weddings on that front. (I remember that in the planning session, my parent's young Catholic priest said to us, "you know, one thing we Catholics do really well is funerals" and it occurred to me, no longer a believer, who has seen and studied many funeral rituals, that I tend to agree with him on that front.)
In the end, it's all illogical, it's about dealing with the emotions of the living.
November 2, 2007 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have an affinity to the idea of burial, going back to the earth and becoming plant food.
Compost!
I sometimes think of reincarnation philosophies as representing that kind of natural, elemental transaction. The stuff of life breaks down and recombines to foster new life.
They show reapect for human life but they don't have the symbolic hubris of putting bodies in buildings above ground as if humans are something apart from the cycle of life.
The mausoleum thing puts me off a bit too. Although I remember from when I lived in New Orleans for a short while that they had a ton of mausoleums for pragmatic reasons -- something to do with being below sea level and the land being swampy.
I've had acquaintances who have been cremated and I just find that a memorial service is just not the same as a wake/funeral with a body for the living to deal with grief.
Yeah. I actually went to the vet's to say goodbye to my cat before he was cremated -- which of course makes no sense, since he was dead. But somehow it seemed important.
But I guess some people find the wake thing creepy, don't want to be embalmed, etc.
I remember that in the planning session, my parent's young Catholic priest said to us, "you know, one thing we Catholics do really well is funerals" and it occurred to me, no longer a believer, who has seen and studied many funeral rituals, that I tend to agree with him on that front.
Yeah.
November 3, 2007 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink