Had an odd thought occur to me today. What was the best meal I remember from a church function?
Now I know not everyone went to a fellowship type Christian church like I did, or maybe didn’t have any religious upbringing. So maybe someone religious has offered you homemade food before?
Anyways, I was stuck at work, and of course daydreaming about lunch. So I started thinking about food, and I remembered this amazing homemade fried chicken that I had at a potluck. Now that is the only food I can specifically remember that I ever enjoyed from my religious experiences. Maybe it’s the northeast or my area that we have what I would describe as the most bland awful boiled foods. I’m honestly stunned after leaving religion how much good food I was missing out on.
Now I mean we ate plenty of garbage fast food and chain restaurant food, which some was “good” but never note worthy. This is just another thing about my religious upbringing that makes me laugh now. Anyone else have any weird or interesting food related religious experiences?
I agree. The food can pretty good. They’d have grill outs with burgers, chicken, and hot dogs not to mention what everyone else would bring to the table. I used to enjoy going to my father’s church when there was a dinner. He’d go help cook while I’d flirt and stare at the girls in the youth group (I was 14 years old at the time) . I was a horny little bastard back then. The religious banter was honestly not that bad. The girls just talked about school and their friends. I remember hanging out with this other boy who didn’t give a shit about church. We talked about everything but church when we were there and no one said a damn thing. Come to think of it, I don’t think Presbyterians are bad at all. Not compared to Baptists and how controlling they are. Presbyterians actually support Abortion and women’s rights. We had a female “reverend” named Gale when I was a member of that denomination even though I didn’t believe in god. I was just a captive audience because my father had me go with him and his wife. The sermons were incredibly boring and I would sit in the pew and daydream about whatever until it was over. One of the youth group kids didn’t agree with my membership because I didn’t stay for the full ceremony like they did or do the homework for it…because my father was a very influential member of that church and therefor I skirted by. We mowed the church lawn and he had me lighting the candles during the service. He had me sucking up to the reverend and she ate it all up. I even got to wear the red ceremonial robes. All that until I moved back in with dear old mom and had to put up with the Baptist bullshit.
Then I consider you one lucky son of a bitch. The food up here is total shite. Minus mashed potatoes, but how do you fuck up mashed potatoes?
I swear it must be the area I live in then, these people couldn’t boil water. Ever since I met my wife I started experiencing the world of food. It’s just coo coo thinking back on it now, my mother was always on some diet. Jenny Craig, weight watchers, or whatever else was popular then. She was never what I would ever consider as overweight, she just had some weird obsession with dieting and appearances which I now find deeply disturbing.
I now find myself also wondering if she was on “The Weigh Down” method, which was a weird Christian weight loss program from some bonkers church. It is seriously nutty how people put religion on everything, like I put hot sauce on everything.
Presbyterian sounds very similar to brethren fellowship. We did a lot of cookouts, burgers and dogs were always a favorite. I just never remember anyone having a standout dish or food that everyone raved about. I always remember leaving and thinking, I’m still hungry. Even the elders, the ones who bragged about being the matriarchs of the family, they all cooked bland mushed vegetables that no one liked. Every old lady made the most disgusting boiled green beans with gravy vomit
As for being a horny adolescent, yea definitely understand that. The only reason I ever went along with any of the church crap was because there were girls there. Otherwise I had zero interest. A game-less offbeat weirdo like me had absolutely no chance of talking to girls otherwise.
Yeah… I really miss being hand-fed those little wafer dinners by candlelight, while some crazy woman jabbering in a heavenly language spins in circles behind my back as I sip on a cheap $3 rot gut Meiomi Pinot Noir from the bottom of a paper medicine cup.
lol I admit, the only reason I went to church back when I was a teenager was for the free food and snacks. I ate out with the youth group all of the time. We used to go to Pizza Hut. There was literally an excuse to eat out or have a grill on weekends. But then I moved in with my mother and her husband, I found out that the Baptists aren’t like that hardly at all. Most of the members there didn’t have much to say to me. Joining the youth groups were not fun at all. They were all about praying all hour, talking about how much they love their god, and talking about scripture. Obviously I didn’t find the fun in that. I found the Presbyterians to be more of a social group in comparison lol.
I feel cheated…we had no Whirling Dervishes in my church…just a red-faced, pulpit-pounding crazy bastard scaring the shit out of all of the congregation. The dinners were fantastic though. Since I was a poor kid a feast was a rarity and I pigged out, though being a skinny kid I couldn’t eat all that much. The homemade dinner rolls were fantastic and the selection of pies was eye-popping.
That is exactly like the church I went to versus a non-denominational youth group I use to be part of. The youth group was cool, they had a pond for us to swim and fish in, horseshoe pits, volleyball, frisbee, archery, pool tables, etc. all kinds of cool shit. Accept then they would do all this bible study crap that was fuckin batshit bonkers now that I look back on it.
The actual “lessons” were just a mental flogging, basically all the fun activities we did flirting with girls and hanging out was all against what they were teaching us. The place was the most hypocritical crazy I have ever seen, constantly shaming us about sex and money. It was seriously a boot camp for whatever psycho brand of “Christian” they were peddling.
The guy who ran it of course drove a Jaguar, owned like 200 acres of land, and lived in a mansion. Basically a wannabe Joel Olsteen. The guy gambled on stocks for a living as a middle man. Basically a total hypocritical theist pile of garbage, preach humbleness, abstinence, and everything else. Then his kids were total monsters, weird, raunchy little perverts.
The brethren fellowship church we went to seemed very progressive also. Woman were always equals and abortion wasn’t a topic, just seemed like they were accepted things there. Very chill place.
I gotta say it was the social events that got me out of the Church. I was less social as a child than I can pretend to be today. I would sit and watch all the people. But more than that I would actually listen to them. Their petty complaints, pious oneupsmanship games, and constant negativity disguised as ‘Well pray for you.’ turned my stomach. I belonged to a small evangelist group that traveled around Kansas singing and witnessing to the ignorant. The petty squabbles over who got to sing, witness, go first, play what song, and talk to which people in the audience was insane. Everyone thought they were movie stars for Jesus. The Sunday service was the same once I opened my eyes and looked at it. The pastor puts down the congregation, the members of the congregation put down each other, and they all feel horrible until they beg for forgiveness. The church was one of the most negative places on the planet in and out of the services. The people were hypocritical backstabbing shitheads who might do you a favor but then let everyone know how pious and giving they had been for helping you out.
I remember the social events and the potlucks. I remember the food. But honestly, I remember the people and their petty bullshit more. Yes, as you have said above, flirting with girls, putting others down, gossiping, blaming, tattling, whispers of the latest scandals, putting people down, insults in the name of the lord, secrets shared from smiling backstabbing faces. I remember one of my favorite songs of the era. 1971 16 years old, a runaway from home, living in the basement of an aunt in Pratt Kansas, and I was figuring things out — and failing another HS. The Undisputed Truth - Smiling Faces Sometimes - YouTube
I hid out in church for a while. I thought I had found a home and answers. However, when I peeked in behind the big show that was put on by everyone every Sunday, I realized what I had become.
Same at the church I went to. The old heads hated praise music that younger generations liked. The old heads wanted to sing hymns with a traditional organist. They paid an organist $40,000 a year to play 6 songs once a week……………FORTY FUCKING K???
Then bickering about food for the next luncheon and who was bringing or buying what for it. I’ll never forget my grandmother lecturing my aunt for bringing ice cream to a bible study after she already brought cake. She was furious about her frivolously spending money on ice cream and upstaging my grandmother. I’m sure it was FORTY FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of ice cream……
I really just realized they were all pieces of shit.
Yes. the arguing over the food. Whose pie was the best, how could she brign that again, she wore that same dress. Her daughter is a tramp. Those boys are no good. She only made that dish because she knew I was making my dish. She couldn’t get new clothes for her kids this year, look how shabby they are. Oh, her kids have no manners. It went on and on and on if you sat back and listened to it. Pious bullshit in the name of the lord. And if you ever got them talking about the church up the street. Ha ha ha ha ha … Those heathen sinners going down Satan’s path… I was a Pentecostal; Fire and Brimstone, indoctrinated Christian. You were with me or against me. You were on the side of the Lord or you were burning in hell. Those were the options. Let’s just say, opinions ran strong in the sect of the Assemblies of God. (Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord!)
I have interesting food-related religious experiences.
Even though I am against much of organized religion, I try to volunteer in church soup kitchens every now and then to help feed people facing food insecurity.
I recently rejected this practice, as I was volunteering in a Christian soup kitchen, and saw them turn away a gay couple and their children because of their “values” about homosexuality.
This is why I started volunteering in a Sihk temple, as they have a religious obligation to feed the poor–which they call “langar”–and they turn away nobody. They will even have baby formula waiting for if you call ahead, and–if you’re blind–they will give you dog food for the seeing-eye service dog.
The only rule that they have is that everyone must leave conflicts outside before coming in, so that everyone can eat in peace.
They serve largely vegetarian food on disposable dishes so that religious dietary laws need not interfere with getting a meal.
And–best of all–they don’t prosthetylize or make you listen to sermons. You come in, you eat, and then leave.
That is fantastic, that needs to be how it is in more places. There are a lot of homeless shelters up around Philadelphia that are religiously based. You must go to church service and attend group religious sessions or you are not allowed food or a bed.
That to me is untenable from their pious position of god loves everyone. I don’t see how it is ok to say, oh you don’t believe in my god? Well go starve and freeze in the streets in the delightful January weather.
