"Cooking Lesson" by Sharon Mauldin Reynolds

Cooking Lesson

The ladies of the First Baptist Church of Mount Vista are pleased you are proofreading their recipe book, Manna from Heaven, which is dedicated to past members who have gone on to be with the Lord. Some of the ladies remember when you were editor of the high-school newspaper. But then you left the state after graduation and never came back for reunions. A lot of us wonder why you decided to come back at all. Maybe you’re in the Witness Protection Program (just kidding). But I can understand. There are a lot of worse places than Mount Vista, Miss., to retire, Cincinnati being just one of them.
Even though I wasn’t asked to be on the cookbook committee or contribute a recipe, I am the church secretary. The ladies thought I should go over the manuscript with you. A couple of tips: I know you’ve been living Up North and probably have eaten in some fancy restaurants, but, keep in mind, this isn’t The French Chef, The Joy of Cooking, or even Betty Crocker. Don’t look for anything with the word “fusion” in it. And whatever you do, please do not refer to the AP Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style. Nor should you try to change the name of a recipe, no matter how ridiculous it might sound. Just stick to proofreading. Best also to forget you ever heard of “new Southern cooking.” While you’re at it, donate all your copies of Southern Living to the local library. We’re in the real South, honey, where Crisco is still king.
The first section of the book is appetizers. Here’s a hint: Should you decide to test any of the recipes in your home, I strongly suggest you not attempt Valarie Braddock’s cream-cheese dip ball. What was she thinking? Worcestershire and crushed pineapple? You’ll notice that Valarie dominates this section, but we have to humor her because she is on the cookbook committee. She is also bipolar. You do not want to get on the bad side of Valarie. She once threw a whole baked ham at Janice Caviness at a fellowship dinner because Janice said it had one too many pineapples on it. Just assume any recipe with Valarie’s name on it will feature pineapples. You’ll notice Carol Ann Horton put her mother’s name in the title of her recipe: “Virginia Johnson’s Vidalia Onion Appetizer.” Rumor has it, this nasty mix of onions and mayonnaise on saltines was considered a treat by the six grubby Johnson children, offspring of a sharecropper. Carol Ann claims she still loves it, even though today she could easily afford caviar on her banker husband’s income. Some folks like to flaunt their wealth. Carol Ann prefers flaunting her impoverished upbringing. Ponder that while we head on over to the breads and rolls section.
Some of the ladies got a little carried away with titles, like Elizabeth Lamb’s “Jew Bread.” Even “Kosher Bread” would’ve sounded better. But Elizabeth got in a huff when a couple of the ladies objected. She said they were being politically correct, like those people who want to ban the Confederate flag. Since the nearest Jews are seventy-five miles away in Germantown, Tenn., and aren’t likely to be reading a Baptist cookbook, they decided to let that slide. Pastor Greg Clark called his recipe “Preacher Pancakes.” It’s the same one on the back of a Bisquick box, but he’s the boss. The name “Gussie May” appears in the title of two recipes — one for house bread, another for cinnamon rolls. That contribution comes from Sara Alice Bigsley, who thinks it’s 1865, and she’s still living in the Delta instead of the hills of northeast Mississippi. Gussie May was her family’s cook when she was growing up on her daddy’s Delta plantation. And little Sara Alice loved those warm cinnamon rolls in the morning, so she’s graciously shared the recipe with us hillbillies.
Next, we have cakes and cookies, followed by desserts, and then jams and jellies. Normally, these sections would appear after main dishes, but by now you should know better than to look for any semblance of order in this book: witness soups and salads placed after main dishes. Church ladies pride themselves on their sweets, but they’re not above using box-cake mixes. In fact, that’s a staple of many of these cake recipes. The secret is in the icing or the filling (there is a difference). Again, the titles may leave you shaking your head. The Peter Paul Mounds cake has no candy bars, and the Elvis Presley cake doesn’t use peanut butter and bananas. It does, however, feature Valarie’s favorite staple, pineapples, although she isn’t the author. Lavalee Anderson is. Lavalee claims to be distantly related to the King. How that can be, I do not know because she was adopted and never knew her birth parents. But she can claim a distinction most of us don’t have: she rode the roller coaster at the 1957 Midsouth Fair in Memphis with Elvis. I know that to be true because she described how he was wearing mascara and it had smeared. I could never look at Elvis the same after that.
You may notice a slight south-of-the-border flavor to many of the main dishes.  These ladies love their taco chips and Rotel tomatoes. Velveeta cheese, cream of chicken, and cream of mushroom soups are also big favorites. Just take it for granted, when the recipe calls for “cheese,” it’s Velveeta.
Moving along to the veggies department, note the inclusion of not one, but four recipes for potato casserole. All but Sara Cole’s call for frozen hash-brown potatoes. Sara is something of a health nut, so she chose fresh potatoes. But, in a bow to her fellow cooks, she says you can also use the frozen variety. Left unsaid, if you’re too lazy to peel a potato. Oh, and she is the one exception to “cheese.” It’s actually “cheddar” in her world. Side note: Sara hasn’t been to church in a month of Sundays, ever since the pastor said anybody who voted for Hillary Clinton should go straight to hell. Truth be told, many of us thought that was inappropriate. It could threaten our tax-exempt status. There’s a rumor about looking for a replacement, but you didn’t hear that from me.
So now we come to the last section, “Potpourri.” Isn’t that clever? Basically, these are things that didn’t fit in anywhere else, like “Play-Doh”. Pity the poor soul who tries to eat that. The same goes for an unsavory concoction called “Tomato Gravy,” although you’ve got to hand it to Lori Newman, waxing literary in her instructions: “. . . the delicious aroma permeates the surrounding area . . .” No doubt it permeates the wall of your intestines, too.
I hope you haven’t lost your appetite because the cookbook committee wants to invite you to a fellowship dinner, featuring many of these recipes, when the book is released. And, as a further token of gratitude, they would like to offer you your very own, signed copy. Meanwhile, I’m sure you’ll understand our limited resources make actually paying cash for your services out of the question. Bon appetit.

Sharon mauldin Reynolds

Sharon Mauldin Reynolds's fiction has previously appeared in journals such as Southern Humanities Review, The MacGuffin, Underground Voices, and Evening Street Review. Her short story collection, Walking Air, was released by Pen-L Publishing in December, 2014. She has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Hambidge Center, as well as grants from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. A native Mississippian, she now lives in Lexington, KY, where she has worked as a reporter, teacher, and freelance writer.

Photo Credit: Jackson Purcell