The meat and vegetable dishes are presented in a manner that is intended to remind the honored spirits of their everyday lives in this world, and though the occasion is a ceremony the dishes are set out as if they were a meal being served to a respected elder. This follows the Confucian ideal--expressed in the Doctrine of the Mean--of serving the dead as one would have served them in life.
獻上庶羞，好像將逝者生前的家居生活再次呈現，雖然是祭祀，也要像生前侍奉長輩一樣的細心調理祭品，表現出「事死如事生」的認真心意。