Dead-cakes

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Dead-cake is a type of food that is traditionally eaten at a deceased persons' wake. It is closely related to the folklore of funeral customs.

[edit] Dead-Cakes in Culture

The Google cache of a LoveToKnow project page (the reference project based on the the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica), which was for some reason deleted, states:

...in the Balkan peninsula a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by the survivors of the family. The Dutch doed-koecks or 'dead-cakes', marked with the initials of the deceased, introduced into America in the 17th century, were long given to the attendants at funerals in old New York. The 'burial-cakes' which are still made in parts of rural England, for example Lincolnshire and Cumberland, are almost certainly a relic of sin-eating.