Potluck
My grandparents were long-time members of the Church of Christ. My parents both grew up in the CofC. My wife and I are both B&R (born and raised). Both my father and father-in-law are Elders in the Church, my Dad is a full time minister and his Dad was a long-time preacher as well. What does this all mean? Well, in addition to it providing me with a profound, powerful and life-saving heritage of faith and relationship with God, it has also left me with generations of wisdom and knowledge and a lifetime of experience in one critical area of Church life: the church potluck.
When I finally put my “World Famous” Food Rules in book form, there will be at least one full chapter on the culinary phenomenon that is Church of Christ Potlucks. Maybe all church potlucks are this way, but I only know what I know so I’ll just talk about that until I feel like talking about something I don’t know at which time I will charge on undeterred by my ignorance.
For the uninitiated that might be reading this blog, here’s the gist of a CofC potluck. Weeks in advance, it is announced that on an upcoming Sunday afternoon, there will be a potluck. By Church by-law, making an announcement of this kind requires that it be placed in the bulletin, announced on Sunday morning near the end of services and preferably repeated at least 100 times in various forms. The result will be that approximately 8% of the congregation will realize and remember that there is an upcoming potluck. The other 92% will act as if there had never been any announcement made or communication of any kind and will rush off to procure their food items while the husbands of the 8% arrange the tables and chairs (this often leads to the KFC rule explained below). Approximately 13% of the congregation will become enraged at the Elders for their total lack of communication regarding important Church matters and demand a public apology or at least that they look extra solemn during services for the next several months.
When the glorious weekend finally arrives, there is a clattering of casserole dishes and the smell of ham that fills the air like a light fog all over town. Secret family recipes are unearthed in the dark of night as mothers whisper to their daughters the super-secret ingredient (which is usually mayonnaise) that makes their food offering legendary in the halls of CofCs from Nashville to Abilene. Fathers choose their loosest pairs of pants in thoughtful consideration of the feast to come, while the children beg and plead to not have to “stay at Church all day this time” or “eat that green stuff with the raisins” or “wear these itchy pants.”
Services that Sunday morning literally take on a whole new flavor as the smell of potatoes au gratin mixes with fresh apple pie and wafts through the auditorium until you can almost taste Sally’s famous recipe potatoes (take normal potatoes – add mayo). Then as soon as the last song is sung (preferably and traditionally 728b, with one broadly sung repeat of the refrain), chaos takes hold like the vacuum sealed lid on Helen’s famous freezer jam.
Children start running and screaming with a wild aimless passion that normally only accompanies Christmas morning on a sugar high. The women move with a purpose like members in a well prepared army setting the various food offerings out on folding tables near the kitchen. The men remove their suit coats (ok, not any more, but back when men other than lawyers wore suits, they did) and begin moving chairs and tables into position as the squeak of folding table legs being pulled and snapped into position echoes through the fellowship hall.
Finally, the preacher, with that booming voice that God gave only to preachers and Boxing announcers, calls people to order. Children are admonished to find their families. Visitors (whether there are any or not) are invited to go to the front of the line. (This invitation to visitors is made even if there are only 40 people in the room and everyone has known each other from birth or before). Then the preacher begins his prayer and the first few words are lost as parents all over the room “shhhhh” their young children, already red-faced and sweaty from their pre-potluck shenanigans. The prayer is simple, but, again by church bylaw, must thank God for His blessings and must ask God to allow the food to “nourish our bodies.” (Apparently, many Christians believe that, at their behest, God will actually transform the molecular quality of food so that even some poor vegetable overcooked and fried beyond all recognition to anyone not southern, would nevertheless provide the sustenance to make it home for a long afternoon nap).
In other words, everyone brings some food that is shared by everyone else on Sunday afternoon after Church.
If you ever find yourself at one of these hallowed events, you owe it to yourself to read my advice and carry it with you like it was a map to treasure…because in some ways, it is. Here are 10 bits of advice that might help.
1. Scout your side. In most potlucks food is laid out on long folding tables set end to end and a line forms that splits to move on both sides of the table. It is very difficult to get to the food on the other side of the table so choosing which side to go down, is critical. The line doesn’t split until right up against the table and there is no time or really opportunity to see the layout then when you are getting your silverware, paper plate and forgetting to grab yourself a napkin. You must go early, right before the prayer and check to see which side is best. Then, when the moment of truth comes, stick the side you have chosen and don’t be swayed by a single dish you didn’t see before or change your mind to stand closer to some girl who doesn’t really like you and will spend the entire time ignoring you even though earlier she was looking at you and you thought, maybe she does like me….sorry…teen flashbacks….where was I? oh yeah, scout your side and stick to it.
2. The Peggy Rule: Know who brought what. Try to figure out early who is a good cook and then watch them when they bring their food in so you can make sure to get something they brought. These people are usually minor celebrities around potluck time and identifying them is usually pretty easy. If you are new, try to position yourself near someone who looks like they’ve been going to that Church since around the birth of Moses and watch where he goes. Never underestimate the things a veteran can show you.
3. The Family Rule: You have to get something your mother or spouse made. There are no exceptions. If you don’t want to follow this rule, then there is just no helping you anyway.
4. Put your silverware and napkin in your pocket. Don’t try to hold it in your non plate hand or cup it under your plate. Both severely limit the range of motion you may need to reach for some must-have dish on the other side of the table in case you chose the wrong side or someone moved a dish at the last minute. Also, get two plates and stack them. You need the thickness as some of the food will be surprisingly runny.
5. The safety net. There will always be Kentucky Fried Chicken at your potluck. You are more likely to die of a paper cut than go to a CofC potluck without KFC. (side note: Did you know that you are statistically more likely to die from a vending machine than you are to be struck by lightening…true story). I believe this is at least partly due to the phenomenon described above, where a large percentage of the congregation will have not realized or forgotten there is a potluck and will rush out after services and buy fried chicken. Consider the KFC your safety net. Most of the food offerings are likely to be unrecognizable casseroles. Who knows what awaits you under that layer of cheese on top? If you don’t see anything you like, don’t despair, or panic and choose one of these surprise meals in a dish, just wait for the KFC. One caveat to this is that all children and potluck veterans already know this so the KFC will go fast. Don’t wait too long to get in line or you’ll be playing without a net.
6. When people are starting to gather to form the line, make a loud show of gathering your children to you. This will hopefully send a subtle hint to other parents to do the same and cut down on the huge number of KFC loving kids who will crowd the front of the line.
7. Don’t wander far from the end of the table where the line will form. Do your duty helping to set up or scrambling for a last minute offering and then loiter near the place that will become the front of the line. You never know when that preacher will start the prayer. Don’t get caught on the other end of the room. The good food will be gone before you get there.
8. Along with KFC, there are a number of other foods that are required to be served at every potluck. Well run churches have enormous pantries full of these items in the unlikely event that someone forgets to bring one of them. Study them. Know them. Prepare for them. They are:
a. Well marbled ham
b. Green bean casserole with onions on the top
c. Potatoes au gratin
d. At least 3 casseroles containing macaroni noodles and various other ingredients not readily identifiable as food
e. The terribly misnamed deviled eggs. (why such an evil name for such a heavenly food? Why not Angled eggs?)
f. Really weak or really strong lemonade. Nothing inbetween.
9. The Dessert storm rule. Most people get their food and find a table and sit down, eat their food and then go back to the separate desert table for desert. Pot luck veterans have a name for people like this – “suckers.” You have to get your desert on your first pass. Get your food, find a table, put your plate down and return immediately to the dessert table. This will allow you the best opportunity to get something you like and not have to eat carrot cake which isn’t really a dessert, but a bit crime against nature that tries to turn a vegetable into a cake. …but I digress.
10. Help clean up. There is no excuse for you to come, manipulate your way to the front of the line, eat half the KFC, go early for dessert and then leave before things are cleaned up. The same people who did most of the work to cook and set up, will still be there to clean up because that’s who they are. Help those people out, or even better, become one of them. Unless your child has to be rushed to the hospital after choking on an unchewable chunk of ham, stay and help clean up. Not only is it not that hard, but you may learn valuable scouting information about who brings what dish and who made something fantastic that will help you choose your side in the next potluck, which by the way should only be a couple months away, though you’ll forget I told you that right after you read this.
Good luck and thanks to Peggy for inspiring this post. I had more fun writing it than anyone will have reading it, but I’m ok with that.
When I finally put my “World Famous” Food Rules in book form, there will be at least one full chapter on the culinary phenomenon that is Church of Christ Potlucks. Maybe all church potlucks are this way, but I only know what I know so I’ll just talk about that until I feel like talking about something I don’t know at which time I will charge on undeterred by my ignorance.
For the uninitiated that might be reading this blog, here’s the gist of a CofC potluck. Weeks in advance, it is announced that on an upcoming Sunday afternoon, there will be a potluck. By Church by-law, making an announcement of this kind requires that it be placed in the bulletin, announced on Sunday morning near the end of services and preferably repeated at least 100 times in various forms. The result will be that approximately 8% of the congregation will realize and remember that there is an upcoming potluck. The other 92% will act as if there had never been any announcement made or communication of any kind and will rush off to procure their food items while the husbands of the 8% arrange the tables and chairs (this often leads to the KFC rule explained below). Approximately 13% of the congregation will become enraged at the Elders for their total lack of communication regarding important Church matters and demand a public apology or at least that they look extra solemn during services for the next several months.
When the glorious weekend finally arrives, there is a clattering of casserole dishes and the smell of ham that fills the air like a light fog all over town. Secret family recipes are unearthed in the dark of night as mothers whisper to their daughters the super-secret ingredient (which is usually mayonnaise) that makes their food offering legendary in the halls of CofCs from Nashville to Abilene. Fathers choose their loosest pairs of pants in thoughtful consideration of the feast to come, while the children beg and plead to not have to “stay at Church all day this time” or “eat that green stuff with the raisins” or “wear these itchy pants.”
Services that Sunday morning literally take on a whole new flavor as the smell of potatoes au gratin mixes with fresh apple pie and wafts through the auditorium until you can almost taste Sally’s famous recipe potatoes (take normal potatoes – add mayo). Then as soon as the last song is sung (preferably and traditionally 728b, with one broadly sung repeat of the refrain), chaos takes hold like the vacuum sealed lid on Helen’s famous freezer jam.
Children start running and screaming with a wild aimless passion that normally only accompanies Christmas morning on a sugar high. The women move with a purpose like members in a well prepared army setting the various food offerings out on folding tables near the kitchen. The men remove their suit coats (ok, not any more, but back when men other than lawyers wore suits, they did) and begin moving chairs and tables into position as the squeak of folding table legs being pulled and snapped into position echoes through the fellowship hall.
Finally, the preacher, with that booming voice that God gave only to preachers and Boxing announcers, calls people to order. Children are admonished to find their families. Visitors (whether there are any or not) are invited to go to the front of the line. (This invitation to visitors is made even if there are only 40 people in the room and everyone has known each other from birth or before). Then the preacher begins his prayer and the first few words are lost as parents all over the room “shhhhh” their young children, already red-faced and sweaty from their pre-potluck shenanigans. The prayer is simple, but, again by church bylaw, must thank God for His blessings and must ask God to allow the food to “nourish our bodies.” (Apparently, many Christians believe that, at their behest, God will actually transform the molecular quality of food so that even some poor vegetable overcooked and fried beyond all recognition to anyone not southern, would nevertheless provide the sustenance to make it home for a long afternoon nap).
In other words, everyone brings some food that is shared by everyone else on Sunday afternoon after Church.
If you ever find yourself at one of these hallowed events, you owe it to yourself to read my advice and carry it with you like it was a map to treasure…because in some ways, it is. Here are 10 bits of advice that might help.
1. Scout your side. In most potlucks food is laid out on long folding tables set end to end and a line forms that splits to move on both sides of the table. It is very difficult to get to the food on the other side of the table so choosing which side to go down, is critical. The line doesn’t split until right up against the table and there is no time or really opportunity to see the layout then when you are getting your silverware, paper plate and forgetting to grab yourself a napkin. You must go early, right before the prayer and check to see which side is best. Then, when the moment of truth comes, stick the side you have chosen and don’t be swayed by a single dish you didn’t see before or change your mind to stand closer to some girl who doesn’t really like you and will spend the entire time ignoring you even though earlier she was looking at you and you thought, maybe she does like me….sorry…teen flashbacks….where was I? oh yeah, scout your side and stick to it.
2. The Peggy Rule: Know who brought what. Try to figure out early who is a good cook and then watch them when they bring their food in so you can make sure to get something they brought. These people are usually minor celebrities around potluck time and identifying them is usually pretty easy. If you are new, try to position yourself near someone who looks like they’ve been going to that Church since around the birth of Moses and watch where he goes. Never underestimate the things a veteran can show you.
3. The Family Rule: You have to get something your mother or spouse made. There are no exceptions. If you don’t want to follow this rule, then there is just no helping you anyway.
4. Put your silverware and napkin in your pocket. Don’t try to hold it in your non plate hand or cup it under your plate. Both severely limit the range of motion you may need to reach for some must-have dish on the other side of the table in case you chose the wrong side or someone moved a dish at the last minute. Also, get two plates and stack them. You need the thickness as some of the food will be surprisingly runny.
5. The safety net. There will always be Kentucky Fried Chicken at your potluck. You are more likely to die of a paper cut than go to a CofC potluck without KFC. (side note: Did you know that you are statistically more likely to die from a vending machine than you are to be struck by lightening…true story). I believe this is at least partly due to the phenomenon described above, where a large percentage of the congregation will have not realized or forgotten there is a potluck and will rush out after services and buy fried chicken. Consider the KFC your safety net. Most of the food offerings are likely to be unrecognizable casseroles. Who knows what awaits you under that layer of cheese on top? If you don’t see anything you like, don’t despair, or panic and choose one of these surprise meals in a dish, just wait for the KFC. One caveat to this is that all children and potluck veterans already know this so the KFC will go fast. Don’t wait too long to get in line or you’ll be playing without a net.
6. When people are starting to gather to form the line, make a loud show of gathering your children to you. This will hopefully send a subtle hint to other parents to do the same and cut down on the huge number of KFC loving kids who will crowd the front of the line.
7. Don’t wander far from the end of the table where the line will form. Do your duty helping to set up or scrambling for a last minute offering and then loiter near the place that will become the front of the line. You never know when that preacher will start the prayer. Don’t get caught on the other end of the room. The good food will be gone before you get there.
8. Along with KFC, there are a number of other foods that are required to be served at every potluck. Well run churches have enormous pantries full of these items in the unlikely event that someone forgets to bring one of them. Study them. Know them. Prepare for them. They are:
a. Well marbled ham
b. Green bean casserole with onions on the top
c. Potatoes au gratin
d. At least 3 casseroles containing macaroni noodles and various other ingredients not readily identifiable as food
e. The terribly misnamed deviled eggs. (why such an evil name for such a heavenly food? Why not Angled eggs?)
f. Really weak or really strong lemonade. Nothing inbetween.
9. The Dessert storm rule. Most people get their food and find a table and sit down, eat their food and then go back to the separate desert table for desert. Pot luck veterans have a name for people like this – “suckers.” You have to get your desert on your first pass. Get your food, find a table, put your plate down and return immediately to the dessert table. This will allow you the best opportunity to get something you like and not have to eat carrot cake which isn’t really a dessert, but a bit crime against nature that tries to turn a vegetable into a cake. …but I digress.
10. Help clean up. There is no excuse for you to come, manipulate your way to the front of the line, eat half the KFC, go early for dessert and then leave before things are cleaned up. The same people who did most of the work to cook and set up, will still be there to clean up because that’s who they are. Help those people out, or even better, become one of them. Unless your child has to be rushed to the hospital after choking on an unchewable chunk of ham, stay and help clean up. Not only is it not that hard, but you may learn valuable scouting information about who brings what dish and who made something fantastic that will help you choose your side in the next potluck, which by the way should only be a couple months away, though you’ll forget I told you that right after you read this.
Good luck and thanks to Peggy for inspiring this post. I had more fun writing it than anyone will have reading it, but I’m ok with that.
Comments
I hate potlucks.
I guess this is why I've never real felt like I fit in with everyone else. It is also, by the way, genetic. Dad hated 'em too.
The reasons are many and probably blogworthy so I'll just hold onto them for now.
thoroughly, and we thank you.
Another rule: That "chicken" and cheese casserole might be tuna and cheese. Take a tiny piece and smell it/taste it before you load up on something you thought you were going to like. Especially if the cheese is of the white variety instead of yellow.
I'm not really a huge potluck fan myself, but I do sort of feel like they are a part of who I am. I will be watching for your post on potlucks. Don't leave us hanging.
It was your doing and you're very welcome.
You raised two great points that I left out. Layering is one important part of food arranging, but one of the greatest potluck skills is food arranging on your plate so that they don't all run together and become one soupy mess. I'm one of those who doesn't really like my food touching so this has always been hard for me, but the layering idea is a very good one.
More importantly though, I can't believe I left that jello "salad" with fruit in it off my list of foods you will always find. Does anyone really like that or is it like fruitcake and people still make it, but no one eats it.
Either way, it isn't a salad. In some ways it is the exact opposite of my vegetables masked as dessert comments. Dessert masked as vegetables. it is one of the strangest foods I've ever encountered and I've eaten rattlesnake and my own cooking.
I notice Westside has moved mostly to the partially catered potluck. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I will say that the food is usually better though.
Regarding the usual long sermon at any denomination right before a potluck, Lyle Lovett has written a song called "Church" on this point alone. It is quite funny, you should listen to it.
Also, be honest with me here. Are you also the one person who likes fruitcake?
I do believe that is the first time the word "gourmet" has appeared within 5 words of the word casserole.
I am going to look for that song the first chance I get.
Good to know there is someone out there to eat all that tuna.