CHURCH SUPPERS

Despite the various talents blessed on this family, I’ve never had any skill of artistic merit---no stitches, no paint, no musical gifts.   I cook, but that’s about it---even my Daddy would say, “Well, you cook good and you can arrange really pretty food, but then it all gets eat up.”

Cooking IS important; our families are our staunchest supporters and our gentlest critics, though most learn early that you might tease an unruly dog a coupla times, you can bicker and riposte with your siblings, but you don’t EVER insult or irritate the cook. 

 And on Church Supper Nights, the Good Church Ladies ramp cookin’ up a few notches into Olympic-Gold territory.  They set down their BEST, every time---kept to a single-minded standard of excellence judged by each other and their own stern principles, and few restaurants can claim that.    We all know Mamas and Grandmas and Mammaws whose experience in that one cultural item would equal degrees and awards and testimonials were it in a field of work accredited by other than glowing compliments and an enviable reputation.

Good Church Ladies ARE AS VAIN AS ANYBODY WHEN IT COMES TO COOKING---A COOK’S REPUTATION IS ALL. The Pillsbury Bake-Off pulls forth no such efforts from kitchens as the collective strivings of a community of good cooks on Church Supper night.

They get into those kitchens and whip up Aunt Hattie’s Potato Surprise or Death by Kool-Whip desserts or Bean Bundles tied with pimiento strips, and dedicate the same time to the prettifying as to their own careful grooming and Standing Appointment coifs.  They serve out those delights on their fanciest dishes---the ones their children are forbidden to LOOK AT crooked through the glass of the china cabinet.   Those prized plates and platters and Depression Glass with the little fading hand-written masking-tape labels on the bottoms---only THOSE are worthy of THIS occasion.

As a longtime student (PhD in Church Suppers, WMU meetings, Garden Club receptions, et al.) of the Southern covered-dish social phenomenon, I know the kitchen-proud heart of every woman who sets down her best effort, in her best, prettiest dish, and then looks up to see that new hussy bearing in a tray of hummingbird tongues garnished with Carmen Miranda's best hat.

And after a lot of years as one of those Church Ladies myself, I’ve wondered if they’ve all learned by now to do the Mammy-and-Scarlett thing and eat a little something at home beforehand.   For there’s a kind of protocol to the serving line, adhered to in almost every denomination:  the Mamas go through the line first, filling the children's plates---picking out all the choicest pieces of chicken and the devilled eggs and Mrs. Pugh’s famous-in-five-counties Cheese and Macaroni for the kids, who will take two bites, then abandon plates and places, running off to heed the siren call of all those friends to play with.  


 Then the men go along the line, assassinating all the best casseroles, laying waste to the low-cooked snap beans and butterbeans and skillets of corn, and eagerly forking up all the rest of the fried chicken and the baked ham and scraping out all but the little high-water-marks of crust around the big blue roaster of Miss Quinette’s duck and dressing.

 So those ladies who prepared their very best dishes, mainly for the approbation of all the OTHER Good Church Ladies---THOSE ladies will have to be content with the admiration, for the food left affords but scanty scrapes of three kinds of baked beans, four kinds of potato salad, and the six ground-beef-and-noodle concoctions the hungry hordes left behind because they’re  all alike, and everybody’s tried them before.

And amongst the devasted, empty pie plates, cakestands and cobbler dishes, with their forlorn scribbles of filling and scattered crumbs, there’s almost always an untouched Jello-and-Kool-Whip sump’n-nother.   Maybe even Poke Cake.