A Church Food Revelation

 “After 4 days of white people food, man, your cookin’ was slammin!” I stared at this text that I wrote to my son-in-law, but could not get myself to hit “send.”  Something seemed wrong about it.  Was I saying that “white people’s food” was nasty? Tasteless?  Unpalatable?  No, because most of the food that had been served or given to me to take home over the holidays was quite good.  It’s just that I have an ingrained perception of the differences between “white people food” and the food with which my palate is most familiar and often craves, called, “soul food.”  I chickened out and changed my text to say, “After 4 days of ‘church people’ food…”  Yet, I knew that my son-in-law, knowing what my world was like, would crack the code that I really meant “white people food”.  

The truth is that there is a difference in our approaches to food and fellowship.  (Yet another hurdle for us to overcome on our journey to the fully racially-integrated church).   We have to acknowledge and admit these differences, and we should confess that there are kitchen counter whisperings that express how we really feel about each other’s foods.  Some white person right now is declaring, “I love collard greens!” or “I grew up on hoppin’ john”, and some black person is bragging, “I’ve never eaten chit’lins”!  Despite the endless TV food shows, we are still sometimes worlds apart when it comes to food, and hence, fellowship.

In the home I grew up in we ate pig’s feet often.  At first when I left home, in my yuppie life, the thought of ever having eaten straight-up fat, especially from a pig, repulsed me.  (I’m still amazed that my Dad lived into his seventies).  A stark reality was evoked at my son-in-law’s Christmas Eve party, where there was a full roast pig, golden-brown and stretched out on the kitchen counter from head-to-toe – hairy face, ears and tail intact. I was fully sober, but somehow drawn to the pig’s feet. I kept staring at them thinking that if I were in a less sophisticated setting, I would snap those feet off, douse them in vinegar and hot sauce, and eat every bit of the fat and lean meat and suck the toes. 

I imagined appropriate side servings of greasy, cheesy macaroni and cheese, slippery collard greens soaked in smoked ham hock grease, sweet potato slices swimming in syrup and real butter (and aptly called “candied” yams), and fried chicken that squirts juice (and grease) when you bite into it, and of course, boiled-egg-laden potato salad, and salty, chicken-y flavored “church rice”. These are the standard comfort foods of my Baptist heritage, always, always served and expected at church events, fellowship and funerals.  I admit that I miss these culinary staples rarely served at the gatherings of white churches in the North.   

The revelation is that in our quest to ultimately bring us together, some things will remain unshaken.  I realize that rice is the only commonality between dirty rice, stuffed grape leaves and spring rolls, but given the choice, I’m probably gonna choose dirty rice every time and twice on Sunday.  

I have a feeling there will never be such a thing as “church people food,” because at least in Pennsylvania, it would have to range from pot pie to borscht.  But I did learn how easy it is, even for us clergy people, to craft cross-over terminology to mask our simplest prejudices. 

Guilty, as revealed.