cover image Soul Food: Recipes and Reflections from African-American Churches

Soul Food: Recipes and Reflections from African-American Churches

Joyce White. William Morrow Cookbooks, $25 (368pp) ISBN 978-0-06-018716-3

Intended to please a congregation of palates, these church-supper recipes possess a simplicity that suits the accompanying stories about their contributors. After sending forth a call for Sunday favorites to churchgoing folk in cities big and small, White, a freelance food writer, received scores of letters from Harlem and Tyler, Tex., and Biloxi, Miss., and Detroit. The responses embrace a range of dishes suitable for kettles, warming trays and big-handled spoons: Pineapple Cornbread; Fried Green Okra; Baked Chicken and Gravy; Salmon Croquettes; Love-Glazed (pineapple juice and brown sugar) Ham; Hush Puppies. Paprika is fairly ubiquitous; a cup of ketchup features in both Barbecued Shrimp and Neat Meatloaf. In the narratives accompanying these 150 recipes, the cooks are presented as busy, generous, hard-working and religiously devoted. One is ""a poet, Sunday school teacher, legal secretary and meeting planner."" Of another White wonders how she ""has time to cook, considering the wide array of church activities and community projects that she is involved in."" The book is more notable for its cultural trimmings than for its recipes. Some readers may find themselves longing for the company of just one lazy sinner with a booty of Italian sausage. (Feb.)