church

Southern Baptist Dinner on the Grounds: A Culinary Tradition

My favorite days in my Southern Baptist upbringing were “Dinner on the Grounds” after church. On these rare and glorious days, all the women brought their finest dishes to be spread out on picnic tables, or in earlier times, tablecloths or quilts on the church lawn. Competition was fierce to be recognized as the best of the best. People strolled among the entrees, choosing foods that looked the tastiest.

Fried chicken was the most popular offering but the aroma of mouth-watering meatloaf beckoned the hungry. Chicken and dumplings tempted ravenous worshippers. Huge bowls of potato salad, greens, and homegrown green beans with slabs of bacon made a show. Squash casseroles, sliced homegrown tomatoes, cucumbers, homemade pickles of all kinds, and sliced onions tempted the adults. No self-respecting kid would have wasted stomach room on vegetables when there was fried chicken and dessert to be had. Of course, there was homemade rolls, biscuits, and cornbread to be slathered with butter.

Dessert tempted even the pickiest eater: chocolate, coconut, pineapple upside down cake and pound cake vied for attention. Tables groaned under the weight of lemon meringue, chocolate, apple, and sweet potato pies. There might even be a mock-apple pie. Finally, there might be homemade vanilla or peach ice-cream, the favorite dessert of them all.

After lunch, men congregated to discuss farming, fishing, or politics. The women gathered around picnic tables to discreetly nurse or rock their babies while gossiping or discussing their husbands or children. Of course, dresses and babies were admired. They might tacitly calculate the date a new wife’s baby was due. This could be discussed at leisure at morning coffee with friends later in the week.

Hysterically happy children ripped about the churchyard and cemetery after dinner. Initially, parents tried to curb them but usually gave up and let them race about as the heavy lunch took its toll on parental energy. There would be howling kids and skinned knees as the afternoon dragged on. By the time clean up was complete, play weary children’s whining and irritability made it clear that the festivities were nearing their end. Women promised to exchange dress patterns and recipes while men said their farewells. A wonderful afternoon would be at its end.

Religious confusion

Communion charmed me.  It pained me to see the perfect little glasses and morsels of wafer in the gleaming trays pass me by.  I suspect Mother’s thoughts weren’t sacred as she warned me off with dark looks and shaking head.  It seemed wrong to waste communion on adults when those cups were obviously child-sized.  Glenda Parker boldly reached in and took two tiny cups right under her mother’s eye.  She slurped the juice from one cup, then poured the juice from the other back and forth a few times before spilling it.  Her mother sweetly wiped up the pew with a dainty hanky, never shooting her “the look.”  With my head bowed during prayer, I saw Glenda stack and restack those cups and slip them in and out of the little slots on the back of the pew in front of her while her mother piously bowed her head in prayer.  Why couldn’t God have given me to a mother like that?

Baptism was even more interesting.  The first baptism I witnessed took place in a pond.  The congregation gathered around as the preacher led the candidates in one by one and dipped them backwards into murky water.  I yearned to get in that line, but had been warned not to move from Mother’s side.  The next baptism took place in our church’s new sanctuary.  The curtains behind the choir loft opened to reveal a glass-fronted tank before a lovely mural of the Jordan River.  The preacher stepped  in and spoke a few words before assisting Miss Flora Mae down the steps into the tank.  Miss Flora Mae’s full-skirted white skirt ballooned on the surface of the water as she descended, revealing chubby legs and white panties, an unexpected thrill for me and other less-holy onlookers.  A few even snickered as Miss Flora Mae struggled to recover her dignity.

By the next baptism, the baptistry’s glass front had been painted.