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Spaghetti Suppers and Dinner on the Grounds

© Kimberly Skopitz

Whitebread Protestants : food and religion in American culture / Daniel Sack.

Every Wednesday night, my childhood church offered a full hot dinner for the congregation: fried chicken, roast beef, delicious rolls, and more vegetables than I could stand to look at. We met in a basement room that was filled with steam, fragrant smells, and chuckling conversation. Afterwards, I went to choir practice and then on to church services. The best part of the evening was the food.

Surprisingly, I thought my church was rather unique in this--I grew up hearing my parents talk about 'dinner on the grounds' in their childhoods, which took place at the same time of yearly revivals, but never heard other people speaking of church suppers. As it appears, everyone else was just holding out--maybe they afraid there would be even less banana pudding to go around, if more people knew!

Daniel Sack does a beautiful job of showing how churches got into the business of feeding their congregations, as well as why. The endless debates and effort that went into making church a social place, as well as a religious one at the beginning of the 20th century, and how that interest turned more to feeding others in church soup kitchens as the century wore on. Fascinating reading, and oddly inspiring, too.

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