Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral

by Gayden Metcalfe, Charlotte Hays

Overview

Folks in the Delta have a strong sense of community, and being dead is no impediment to belonging to it. Down South, they don't forget you when you've up and died—in fact, they visit you more often. But there are quintessential rules and rituals for kicking the bucket tastefully. Having a flawless funeral is one of them.

In this deliciously entertaining slice of Southern life (and death), inveterate hostess Gayden Metcalfe explains everything you need to know to host an authentic Southern funeral. Can you be properly buried without tomato aspic? Who prepares tastier funeral fare, the Episcopal ladies or the Methodist ladies? And what does one do when a family gets three sheets to the wind and eats the entire feast the night before a funeral?

Each chapter includes a delicious, tried-and-true Southern recipe, critical if you plan to die tastefully any time soon. Pickled Shrimp, Aunt Hebe's Coconut Cake, and the ubiquitous Bing Cherry Salad with Coca-Cola are among the many dishes guaranteed to make the next funeral the most satisfying one yet.

Even if you've never been south of Rochester, this book will charm, it will entertain, and it will give you all the ingredients required for the perfect Southern send-off.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781549103254
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	01/21/2020
Series:	Official Southern Ladies Guides Series
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 5.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Gayden Metcalfe is a native of Greenville, Mississippi, where she is a member of the Greenville chapter of the Garden Club of America, St. James’ Episcopal Church and the Animal Rescue League. She is the coauthor, with Charlotte Hays, of the bestselling books Being Dead Is No Excuse and Somebody Is Going to Die If Lilly Beth Doesn’t Catch That Bouquet. Both the daughter of a Southern mother and a Southern mother herself, she and her husband have two children.

Charlotte Hays
is a Delta native and a former gossip column contributor to the Washington Times, the New York Observer, and the New
York Daily News. She is the coauthor, with Gayden Metcalfe, of the bestselling books Being Dead Is No Excuse and Somebody Is Going to Die If Lilly Beth Doesn’t Catch
That Bouquet. She lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

1 Dying Tastefully in the Mississippi Delta 1

2 The Methodist Ladies vs. the Episcopal Ladies 27

3 Who Died? Stuffed Eggs, Etiquette, and Delta Pâté 67

4 I Was So Embarrassed I Liketa Died 99

5 Comfort Foods: There Is a Balm in Campbell's Soup 141

6 Suitably Boxed: Meringue Shells, Pecan Tassies… and You 175

7 The Restorative Cocktail 207

Afterword: On the Road with the Divas of Death 237

Index 257

What People are Saying About This

Jill Conner Browne

The definitive guide to that most important and festive of Southern rituals and I love it!
—(Jill Conner Browne, author of The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love)

Editorial Reviews

Witty, sharp and downright hilarious.

Bookpage

If you want a good laugh in this uptight, power-obsessed city, pick up a copy of Being Dead Is No Excuse . And if you are a Southerner, you will laugh until the tears come.
— The Washington Post

Selwa Roosevelt

Being Dead is No Excuse is sure to have Southern hostesses nodding their perfectly coiffed heads in unison.

USA Today

Metcalfe, a lifelong Southerner who's been hiding out in the social circles of Greenville, Miss., exposes the culinary and cultural last rites of the deep South in a fashion that is as sidesplitting as it is politically incorrect, as sincere as it is backstabbingly brutal. She is capably aided by Hays, a "recovering gossip columnist" from Washington, D.C. Residents of the Mississippi Delta, where "polishing silver is the southern lady's version of grief therapy," take their comfort food semiseriously, be it traditional Pickled Shrimp, Liketa Died Potatoes (which incorporate both cheddar cheese and canned cheddar cheese soup) or cream cheese-laden Pecan Tassies. Nobody would be caught dead without Tomato Aspic at the funeral, and St. James' Cranberry Congealed Salad topped with mayonnaise is the dessert of choice. An entire chapter is devoted to stuffed eggs, and another is dedicated to dishes that use canned soup as their base ("Nothing whispers sympathy quite like a frozen-pea casserole with canned bean sprouts and mushroom soup"). A lengthy discourse on "The Methodist Ladies vs. the Episcopal Ladies" is laugh-out-loud funny in its contrast of customs and cuisines and its consideration of the consolation of a "nice, stiff cocktail." And many Greenville residents, alive and deceased, drop by for a howdy, including poor Maribell Wilson, who made the mistake of driving her daddy's ashes home with the windows down. B&w illus. (Mar. 16) Forecast: National media out of New York and a regional author tour through Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee should help this charming, entertaining book take off. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

"Being Dead Is No Excuse is sure to have Southern hostesses nodding their perfectly coiffed heads in unison."-USA Today

From the Publisher