Funeral bread pudding
lets put the "fun" in "funeral"
Hi clowns!
Just a heads up, I won’t be able to post next week — I’m getting a routine butt scope (I turned 45 this year, it’s that time of my life). I won’t be able to eat any dog food for a few days, so writing something fun is going to be impossible. I hear the prep for a colonoscopy is a lot of fun, nobody spoil it and tell me what happens, okay?!
But before I get started today, just wanted to spread a little love. A reader of Food is Stupid, James, who’s a professional musician, needs a bit of help. His car broke down, and without it, he’s going to have some difficulty getting to his paid performances along with his side gig of teaching kids free music lessons in Buffalo, New York. He’s not looking for much ($2k total), so I thought maybe we could give him a hand.
He’s almost halfway there, so I figured a little nudge couldn’t hurt. Hopefully we can get him closer to the finish line.
This week’s edition of Food is Stupid is an interesting one, because it involves a strange dish I’ve seen mentioned on social media a few times. Most recently, I saw it on Cookin’ With Congress Instagram page (thanks Bennett Rea!), and I’ve also seen Sandwiches of History tackle the subject. It’s a regional Midwestern tradition called funeral bread, but we’re specifically zooming in on the Minnesotan version, local to a town called Roseau and the areas nearby.
You see, this curious funeral bread, which is indeed a thing you eat after church or at funerals (or as a delightful snack), is one of the odder earnest combinations of food I’ve seen in a while. It’s just sweet cinnamon bread, uh, Cheez Whiz, and sliced green olives placed gingerly on top. Minnesota governor Tim Walz is a documented fan of it, and it sounds like a Food is Stupid recipe, which might explain why neither of my friends at Cookin’ With Congress or Sandwiches of History enjoyed it.
Bennett said, in his Cookin’ With Congress video, “This is what happens when people are inside too much in the winter.” I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or an insult.
Okay, so the combination of cinnamon bread, Cheez Whiz, and olives is a real weird one, but Davida challenged me to put the “fun” in “funeral.” So I figured I’d remix this thing through the Dannis Ree lens, and turn it into something people might actually be comforted to see at a funeral: bread pudding.
