I have been thinking about Sunday Dinners for quite a while. Back in the day, folks would go to church and then head home with extended family and friends to eat lunch together. The meal would be "Sunday fare" (like fried chicken, not sandwiches!) and somehow it all worked.
Many years ago my husband was a full-time pastor in a tiny town in the Florida panhandle. The church was small and made up of about three major family groups. There were two matriarchs: "Miss Ruby" and "Miss Edith." I'm not sure what Miss Edith did after the service, but Miss Ruby, et al had a routine that had been honed by decades of practice.
Any and all were invited to come. It never mattered how many--there was always plenty of food. Miss Ruby was a widow and lived by herself on a bay five miles up from the Gulf of Mexico. The view was splendid. On her enclosed porch was a giant table with many mismatched chairs. By the time my husband and I arrived after church, the process of getting lunch was already in high gear. Everyone had a job and everyone knew what to do, from the oldest to the youngest. I tried to pitch in, but they shooed me off to the living room where the men were sitting in their easy chairs talking about hunting. Good times.
Within 30 minutes there was fried something as the main course. Each week was different: chicken, chicken-fried steak, mullet and mullet roe--choice of red or white. (I'll talk about the roe in a minute.) Then there were several sides, one always being hush puppies. Another constant was FRESH scraped corn, sweet and creamy. With that was the tall glass of sweet tea in the heavy green glass (similar to the picture at right). The finale? Banana pudding or some other fantastic southern dessert.
HOW DID THEY DO THAT? It never crossed my mind to ask and now I want to know! (I do know a little about hunting, though, thanks to the living room conversations.)
I am restricted by time and location in a way those ladies weren't. They lived five minutes from church. We live 30 minutes away. They knew that church would be done at 12:00 on the dot and they hustled home. We never know when church will end--sometimes quite late. By then we're starving!
Because of our circumstances of distance and time, we eat out every Sunday. Despite that, I am still intrigued with the idea of making a "Sunday Dinner" once in a while, inviting folks to join us.
To that end I've been pondering menus and came across this book:
It just arrived today. If I manage to gear up and actually accomplish this Sunday Dinner thing, you know I'll blog about it!
Does anyone have actual experience with being in on that level of Sunday food prep? How was it accomplished? Were things done ahead of time? Keep in mind that Miss Ruby never used a crockpot or microwave. Miss Ruby was around 80 at the time. That was over 20 years ago. I don't think I'll be able to call Miss Ruby for help. However, I will always remember her as an example, a standard, if you will.
To Miss Ruby, Sunday Dinner hostess extraordinaire!
(PS--About that Roe. The red roe is fish eggs. The white roe was the other item needed to make baby fish. Each type came encased in a sac which was breaded with cornmeal and deep fried. Though there were no 10-foot poles about, I managed to never touch the stuff. I'm talented like that.)
