Sunday Dinner

What’s for lunch?

In the middle of lunch I thought of the word “ritual” and looked it up.

The definition works — “A ceremony in which the actions and wording follow a prescribed form.”

That describes what happens every Sunday after church. Sunday dinner isn’t something we discuss much. We just do it.

We usually settle on the same thing. BLTs.

BLTs are easy to modify. You can substitute SPAM for bacon, add cheese or onion, sub kale or spinach for lettuce or even raw squash for tomato. Cream cheese or sour cream might take over for mayonnaise.

While you’re gagging on the suggestions, I’m more concerned with what you’d call it.

This is a wide departure from how things worked in our family homes.

Sunday dinner might have been the biggest meal of the week, and unexpected company was not out of the question. Sometimes they were relatives.

According to the way things were done, you could not NOT invite your cousin to lunch at home even if they sprang themselves on you at church.

One family, members of the church in Alma, GA, did not cave in on surprise guests. They had excuses when they didn’t want to be bothered with Sunday company. In the day when all stores were closed on Sunday, people didn’t do anything constructive. There was the Sunday paper to consume, or, if nothing else, the room would be full of nodding adults.

Eating out was not possible because restaurants were closed also.

While BLTs are our Sunday choice, there are some sandwiches that are a meal in your hand if you can find or make it.

The KW doesn’t care for pulled pork, but that is near the top for my Sunday sandwich.

Pork tenderloin of the Midwest style is my hands-down favorite sandwich, but you can’t get them around here. I’m sure I could do the prep prior, freeze the meat and cook it on Sunday, but that’s like work.

If we stay true to the ritual, there is no evening meal. We snack on something and let it go at that. Last Sunday we swiped cream cheese on crackers and topped it with strawberry jam.

When feeling creative, one of us might make crab dip to give the cream cheese a break.

My father didn’t use the words “lunch” and “supper.” I don’t know where he developed the habit of calling feeding times “the morning meal,” “the noon-day meal,” and “the evening meal.”

None of his family members did that, so it must have been something he picked up at Berry College during his days there.

As I write this, the clock is climbing towards noon, nearly time for my “noonday meal.”

joenphillips@yahoo.com