Like lots of y’all, I am a fan of the Food Network on cable TV. This would, at first, seem surprising because I am not a cooker. I can get by in a pinch, but I am fortunate to be married to a great cook who enjoys doing it. Fifty years ago she won a national cooking prize sponsored by Kroger and Westinghouse. She was the Junior Cook of the Year! Won $5,000—which was real money back then. Also won a three-week trip to Europe for her, her mother, and her home economics teacher. Also won appliances and lots of other stuff. All for a lime pie! We were high school sweethearts at the time. On her way to the airport to fly to New York City for the final cook off, she and her mother dropped off one of her pies at our house for our family. We had never tasted it. My brother, Steve, found it on the table when he came home from school that day. He cut and tasted it. It was so tart, he thought it was spoiled and threw the whole thing away. Well, she went on and won the contest and has refused to bake the pie again. It’s now fifty years later and I’ve never tasted it. Maybe someday.

     I enjoy cooking shows not because I like to cook, but because I like cooks! And because I like to eat! Through the years I have consumed more than my fair share of fried chicken and Methodist casseroles. I have the portly waistline to prove it. And I have developed a deep affection for church cookbooks. Sometime, years ago, some interprising group of women in a church somewhere had the bright idea to collect the favorite recipes of the women of the church into a cookbook and sell the books to raise money for a worthy cause. It was a rousing success and has now become a tradition in many churches.

     Recently I got hold of what may be my favorite church cookbook. It was recently published by Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, 848 Pisgah Church Road, Stony Point, NC. Edith Redmond Walker coordinated the assembly and production of the book. It is a collection of recipes, stories and pictures that captures the flavor of the 108-year-old congregation.

Four of the five founding families are still involved in the church. So the memories of the cooks and the food at all those homecomings and “covered dish” suppers are still alive and well at Pleasant Grove. Now, here’s what I like about this cookbook. It has the things you would expect on a Baptist table in the South—chicken ‘n dumplin’s, country steak, country ham and red eye gravy. Jip Baker and Peggy Hager are the chicken ‘n dumplin’ Divas. Their recipes are included. They both admit they don’t actually use recipes themselves but they tell how they go about cooking up the delicacy and hope this will help cooks who do need recipes. There are seven persimmon pudding recipes in the book. I am glad to see the persimmon get its rightful recognition. I love persimmon pudding. As a boy, I had to scramble to beat the ‘possums to the puckering fruit.     

     Here’s what I like best about this cookbook. You will find a recipe for making homemade hominy in there! Now, lots of you children don’t even know what hominy is. There was a time in the South when but for hominy and fatback you could nearly starve to death. The economy being what it is today, we may need to rediscover hominy. It takes the better part of 24 hours to make it, so get started early. I can assure you, dear reader, you are not going to learn how to make hominy from Emeril’s cookbook. Nor Mario Batali’s. You can watch the Iron Chef forever but when it comes to Southern-fried chicken, forget it. I love the Iron Chef because it reminds me of “culinary wrestling.” But when it comes to eating good food, give me a good old covered dish supper down at the church. That’s as close to heaven as you can get in this world. I hope this column gets back to the ladies at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. Maybe they’ll have pity and invite this hungry Methodist preacher to their next church supper.

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