On a summer day in 2017, the family of Karen Nelson gathered at her grave site at West Lawn Memorial Park in Racine to honor her life. And the proceedings wouldn’t have been complete without her famous spaghetti chicken casserole — a dish so important to her family that they had it inscribed on the tombstone.
“They made this casserole, they brought cider, and they just gathered around her gravestone. They invited all the people who worked at the cemetery, and they had basically a party at her grave to celebrate her,” said Rosie Grant, who later visited the Nelson family as part of a book she was writing about gravestone recipes.
Grant describes herself as a taphophile, someone who is passionate about cemeteries and burial markers. While researching funerary practices for a degree in library science, she learned about the creative ways people mark their graves.
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“Literally anything that you could imagine that might be important to a person, I’ve probably seen (on) a gravestone,” Grant told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” saying she’s seen images of pets, favorite movie quotes and cherished keepsakes like fishing poles.
“And then, yes, of course, a favorite recipe,” she added.
Grant runs the @ghostlyarchive account on TikTok and Instagram, where she has documented her work in cemeteries. Now, she’s out with a new book, “To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes,” which features 40 gravestone recipes with stories about the people who made these dishes, as told by their families.
Grant joined “Wisconsin Today” to talk about family food legacies, her love of cemeteries and what went into compiling this unique collection of recipes.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Kate Archer Kent: What was your first encounter with a gravestone recipe like?
Rosie Grant: The first one I learned about was for a woman named Naomi Odessa Miller-Dawson, who’s buried in Brooklyn, New York. And at the time, I was interning at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., and I’d started a TikTok account about what it’s like to intern at a cemetery, just because this was a new world for me. I thought the death industry was endlessly interesting.
So while I was doing that, I was featuring different unusual memorials because I was so used to the traditional epitaph of: “Mother,” “Father,” a spiritual quote, a memento mori symbol like the wing and skulls. And I was so struck seeing Naomi’s gravestone. I saw it on a blog called Atlas Obscura, and it looks like an open cookbook. There’s this book on a pedestal, and her recipe is inscribed on it. And I was so struck by that, so I tried making her cookie recipe, and that led the journey to other gravestone recipes.
KAK: What is the ritual of making family recipes? How does cooking them bond us to the loved ones who have passed?
RG: I love food. My family loves a good gathering surrounding a table. But I think I just didn’t fully appreciate how important food traditions and rituals are for connecting with one another.
The idea of someone cooking for you is such a gesture of love and time and labor. And all of these families, the reason why, in a lot of cases, this recipe was picked was because it was something (the deceased family member) would make every holiday. They would host all the gatherings. They were this centerfold of their community and their loved ones. And there was something lost when that person passed away. And people were like, “Who’s going to celebrate our birthday? And what are we doing for Christmas this year?”
When I’d started the book process, both of my grandmothers had just passed away. And at the funeral of one of them, we were talking about this yellow cake that she would make for all of our birthdays, and we were like, “Oh my gosh, we’re going to miss her cake. She made it for every single birthday, every year.” And my mom was like, “It’s just box cake.” (Laughing) There’s nothing that fancy about it. But it was like, to me, yellow cake is just my favorite birthday cake. I want it every year. And so, it doesn’t have to be fancy, but it’s just that time spent with others over food.
KAK: Let’s get into some of these recipes, starting here in Wisconsin with Karen Nelson’s spaghetti chicken casserole. Were you able to visit Karen’s grave site? What did you learn here?
RG: Yes, I visited her. She was one of my favorite people — the discovery process was so enjoyable. I believe I’d learned about Karen’s grave from Reddit. Someone had walked past her grave and posted it in a Reddit thread, and so I reached out to the cemetery — and this is pretty common, just researching and trying to connect with the families — but I called them, and I had asked for details, and the woman who worked there was like, “Oh, we don’t normally bother the families for something like this. This is personal information.” They’re like, “That being said, this family is so fun. They love this woman so much.”
They reached out to the family, and it was like 30 minutes later, I got a text from the daughter, being like, “Hey, let’s chat about my mom.” And her daughter Michele just tells so many funny stories about this woman. She loved Christmas. She was like Hallmark times 10 for Christmas. She made these incredible cakes.
KAK: I loved how her daughter Michele said that “casseroles were in her DNA,” and casseroles and weekly dinners were the currency of the community of Racine. And I thought that was so lovely, and it really touched to the heart of the impact Karen made on her family and in the community.
RG: Michele was even saying, she (would tell the grandkids), “You know, grandma can make other things.” And the kids wanted this exact casserole every single week because it was just comfortable and it was delicious, and it just feeds you really well. And when making it, I was like, “Well, this is great. I have all of my meal prep and leftovers for the week. I can bring this to a dinner party like it just feeds a lot of people.” And so I love that that tradition got carried forward with them still making this casserole.
Spaghetti Chicken Casserole
- 2 ounces spaghetti
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
- 2 cups diced cooked chicken
- 1 medium red bell pepper, chopped fine
- 1 small onion, chopped fine
- 1 jar pimento peppers, drained and chopped
- 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 10.5-ounce can cream of mushroom soup
- 10.5-ounce can cream of chicken soup
- 1 cup milk
Preheat the oven to 350F. Cook the spaghetti according to package directions. In a small saucepan, cook the butter for 5 minutes over low heat. In a casserole dish, combine the cooked spaghetti, chicken, bell pepper, onion, pimento peppers, cheddar, salt and pepper. Pour on the melted butter, cream of mushroom soup, chicken soup and milk. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until bubbling and the cheese is melted. Serve and bake with love.
