Catering for a funeral will not be like catering for a small gathering with friends or for a child’s birthday party. It will be a completely different experience therefore it is important to take into account not only whom you are catering for but also the occasion for which you are catering.
The menu
Being the funeral caterer, you may have direct contact with the family or you may have to communicate with the funeral director. He or she will likely be overseeing everything and may be the middle man between you and the family. Therefore, if you have any questions or doubts about the menu, it is best to ask him or her even several times if you have to in order to ensure that everything is exactly how the family wants it to be.
The dishes
If the family has not given you a menu to follow and has instead asked you to come up with a menu for them then it will be a good idea to take some time to first plan what you want to have on your menu. It is not a good idea to rush the process because before you begin the process of making the food you first need to be sure of what you are going to make. A funeral is not going to be an occasion where people are going to have big appetites.
Therefore, making easy dishes will be a good idea. For example, it is not a good idea to serve steak at a funeral as not only is it difficult to eat but it could also take some time to eat. Some people do not stay too long at funerals and even if they do they would look prefer something easy to eat. Therefore, even if you serve many dishes, serving something easy and not very filling will be a good idea.
Decorations
It is important to keep in mind that you are catering for a funeral. Therefore, it is important that the theme of the food also respects the sombre occasion. For example, decorating the food colourfully will not be a good idea.
The culture
It will be a good idea to sit down with the family or director and discuss certain things such as the type of funeral that is being held. For instance, certain cultures may not serve meat at the funeral and therefore the menu will have to be strictly vegetarian.
Therefore, you will have to then come up with a plan of preparing a menu that is purely vegetarian. Certain cultures provide sweets at functions for celebratory occasions. Therefore, the family may not want any sweets being on the menu.
Number or people
In order for you to be able to get the quantities right, you need to be aware of how many people you are catering for. This is an important factor to take into account because the last thing you want is to not have severed enough food and to run out of food in the middle of a funeral.
