Bereavement Food... What's Appropriate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am in charge of dropping off food for an old friend who lost a parent this week. I live closest and all other friends trust me to decide and then they will pay their share. Would wine in addition to food be a good idea? Sweets since she has kids? Any other ideas... money really isn't much of an issue here.

Sorry for your friend’s loss. As an Indian, I would recommend flowers, since depending on whether they believe in doing vegetarian food during this mourning period, you may be giving them the wrong foods. Bringing food is always a great idea- so if you do, I would recommend staying away from meats etc ( even if they are meat eaters..because many will not eat meat during festivals and mourning periods). if you are close to the person, just text them you would like to bring them meals and give them couple of choices to pick from.

[Anonymous]

If they are part of a church or community where they will get a lot of food, send anything that can be frozen for later and will be easy and useful once they return to their regular life. I lost two close family members in a year, which was terrible, and we had so much food. But the freezeable stuff was all eventually used and appreciated especially once we returned to daily life and had to do things like put dinner on the table or figure out a fast lunch while still grieving.

We had WAY too many unfreezeable salads, fruits, cheese plates, etc that we could not use.