What Food or Drink Would You Want People to Leave at Your Grave?

Cultures all over the world observe practices that involve leaving food or drink at the graves of loved ones. Specific traditions differ, but it’s often the case that mourners will leave comestibles that the deceased particularly enjoyed in life, or that held some special significance to them. We’re kicking off Grave Week here at Atlas Obscura, so take a moment to flirt with your own mortality with us—what food or drink would you want people to leave at your grave?

To help inspire you, consider these famous examples: Outside the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, there’s a headstone (pictured above) for a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker, one of the earliest primates to go to space and return alive. To this day, people still place bananas on her grave to honor her space-race sacrifices. And for the better part of a century, a mysterious person (or persons) has left an unfinished bottle of cognac each year at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore. Personally, I think I’d like my loved ones to leave soup at my grave. Any kind would do. Not only do I eat soup on a far-too-regular basis, but I also like the symbolism of bringing warm soup to a cold graveyard.

Whether it’s a special drink that you haven’t been able to get enough of in life, or a particular dish that you think would make a fitting offering to your eternal spirit, we want to hear about it! Fill out the form below and tell us what food or drink you’d like left on your grave (and why!), and we’ll publish our favorite answers in an upcoming article. Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you have to go hungry.

If you have a favorite food you’d like left on your grave, head over to our community forums and tell us about it!

Gastro Obscura covers the world’s most wondrous food and drink.
Sign up for our regular newsletter.