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I HAD NEVER heard of funeral potatoes before a chilly evening last year, when I sat down to dinner on the patio of Hell’s Backbone Grill. This idyllic farm-restaurant sits at the threshold of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, in the tiny town of Boulder, Utah. No one had died. But as Jennifer Castle, the restaurant’s co-owner and chef, served up tender half-moons of potato napped in cream and melted cheese, tears sprang to my eyes nevertheless.
In the cold, clear night, under a starry sky, we talked about…