Banana Croquettes, a KY Church Dinner Treat

Have you ever eaten banana croquettes? Chances are if you've been to a church dinner in Kentucky, you've had the opportunity to give them a try. 

My little country church had Homecoming Day today. Once a year we invite everybody who has spiritual roots in the church to come "home" for a special service. That can be a lot of roots since our church was celebrating 201 years. In years past, we've invited former pastors back to speak to us, but since we've now had the same pastor for around thirty years, we don't have a large pool of former pastors to pick from. So the last few years my husband's Southern Gospel group, the Patriot Quartet, have been delivering the Gospel in song during the morning service. 

My husband has been singing in groups for forty years. When he started singing, most all the country churches in the area had Homecomings. They'd have preaching in the morning and singing in the afternoon. Sometimes there would be four or five singing groups. That could get looonnnggg! Especially when you had three kids to make sit quietly the way I did then. Over the years, the attendance at afternoon services shrank and shrank until most churches quit having the singing services in the afternoons. Now the group generally sings in the mornings and then enjoys the church dinners. Oh, those wonderful church dinners. You can see a couple of our church youngsters loading up on desserts here and that was just one of the dessert tables!

But those dinners have changed too. Now you see a lot more dishes cooked at Kroger and the chicken nearly always is Famous Recipe or Colonel Sanders or sometimes Kroger too. But when I first got introduced to Homecoming dinners, the chicken was skillet fried before church on Sunday morning and the cakes and pies were homemade. Country cooking - yum!! 

One of the dishes you could always find at a church dinner was banana croquettes. I love banana croquettes. I used to make them, but making banana croquettes is a lot of trouble and messy. Now I skip the salad dressing and just dip my banana in peanuts in an individual serving just for me. But at a church dinner you can sometimes find the real thing. Some people make a fancy salad dressing, but most people just slice the banana into sections. Sometimes lengthwise too. Then they coat the banana in salad dressing. (That's the messy part.) Last, they roll them in chopped or crushed peanuts. (More messy part.) They don't keep well, so you have to eat them all right away. I'm usually up to the challenge if I make it through the dinner line in time to snag any of them. We have a member now who always makes banana croquettes for our dinners. But today her dish got mistakenly put on the dessert table and most people missed it. But a couple of those peanut covered bananas were the perfect dessert for me. 

Have you ever made or eaten banana croquettes? Been to a country church dinner? If so, what was the dish you liked best? We had some great desserts, besides those banana croquettes. One an old fashioned chess pie. That's what my son ate and he told his kids it had no food value, just sweet and good. But the value of food is not always nutrious. At a country church dinner, sometimes the food makes you remember. Like the wonderful lady gone on to celebrate homecoming in heaven now who used to always make two chess pies every homecoming day. 


Ahh, the memories food can give us. Hope my grandkids will have some good memories of Goshen Homecomings when they get older. My oldest granddaughter here did try a piece of cake that she said was the best chocolate cake she'd ever eaten. So there's one good memory! 

Eating Meetings

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity." ~Voltaire

At my little church, we often have what we call "eating meetings." The practice of sharing meals seems to strengthen our fellowship, and the food's pretty good too. There's little better than an old-fashioned dinner on the grounds. Of course, things have changed over the years with our dinners. As you can see in the picture above that was taken on the day we celebrated our 200th year as an organized church here at Goshen, the dinners have moved inside. We have tables and chairs and air-conditioning.

It was a lot different in the years past. In the old days, a couple of the farmers in the church would sweep off their farm wagons and pull them up into the church yard. Then the ladies of the church, who cooked everything they could find in their larders, would load the wagon down with all sorts of dishes from fried chicken to chocolate cake. Somewhere at the end of the wagons, would be jugs of sweet iced tea or lemonade. 
(I borrowed the picture from a Mississippi church website http://www.mayfieldchurchofchrist.org/index.php. I didn't think they'd mind. Old fashioned dinners on the grounds look a lot the same at any country church.)
 
I've been to church dinners where the food was out on the wagons, but by the time I started going to Goshen's dinners, they had a basement where they loaded down two homemade tables with their homemade food and then had a whole counter full of desserts. Folks got in line and came down the stairs, filled up their plates and headed outside to eat wherever they could find a spot. Sometimes the local funeral home would come out and set up one of their tents to give a little shade from the sun. We have a concrete wall around the parking area that works fine as a bench for the younger folk to sit and eat. The men would often congregate around the brick and concrete church sign to stand and eat. Then there were the church steps up to the side door that made more seating such as it was. People found a spot and enjoyed eating with their neighbors and friends and church family.

We had an eating meeting at church today. Good food and a fine fellowship hall to enjoy it in. It would have been chilly to eat outside today, but there was something special about going to those dinners on the grounds when they were actually outside on the grounds. 

How about you? Have you ever been to one of those kinds of eating meetings?

Remember if you leave a comment, you're name will be entered for the giveaway on March 1. Three winners will get an autographed copy of Scent of Lilacs. Each time you comment on a different post, you get another entry, but you do need to leave a name or e-mail address. Oh, and tomorrow on the Hollyhill Book of the Strange, Wes is taking a turn reporting. Check it out Monday.

Snowy Sundays

It appears winter wasn't quite through with us. Last Sunday was balmy. This Sunday snowy. Our church didn't have services the same as about three-fourths of the churches in the area. And it just hasn't seemed like Sunday without going to church to meet and worship with my church family. Actually due to the SC Book Festival and then going to WV to my son's church last weekend, it's now been three Sundays I haven't been out to Goshen to see the "family."

We do feel like a family there. That's why I like going to a small church, and I'm really talking about a small church here. If we ever have 50, we say we had a crowd. If a big town church had 50, they'd panic. But for us 50 is good and 40 isn't bad. While I've been going there since I married, we've averaged anywhere from 20 to 80. I can only remember a few years we brought in the 80. But older members can remember when that was the norm. They used to tell me how during revivals people stood on the outside and listened in through the open windows.

The church was established in 1812. So it's been there a long time. I used my memories of Goshen as it was when I first started going there for my church in my Hollyhill books. It's a good church and it's sent out a lot of faithful members to other churches - people who grew up at Goshen and remember it fondly. At one time one of the men came early on a Sunday morning in the winter to build the fires in the two stoves on either side of the church. Now I don't remember that far back. We had a furnace when I started going.

I told everybody Wednesday at Bible Study that I'd be back this morning the Lord willing and the creek didn't rise. I guess I should have said if the snow doesn't fall. But who expects 6 inches of snow on March 8th. Snow this time of year does make for good snowman material. I was sort of wishing I had some grandkids visiting so I'd have an excuse to go out and make a snowman. But they were sledding on other hills this weekend. I settled for a walk in the snow. It was beautiful yesterday afternoon - white and smooth. Pristine fields of white. Me and the dogs made short work of that. But then by the time we came back the wind was already wiping our footprints away.

Now today the sun melted most of the snow. That is the great thing about it snowing in March. It rarely lasts long. You have the snow to enjoy and then just like that it's gone and you can start looking for crocuses again. I actually spotted some pretty yellow crocuses the other day, and the March flowers are trying to bloom. Spring is really coming. But you should have seen my bird feeder yesterday while the snow was still on. About a hundred birds were fighting for the seeds. Well, at least fifty. I counted fourteen cardinals. They look so pretty against the white snow.

I'm trying to get going on my new book. I'm still figuring out who everybody is. I want to have strong characters who readers will want to read about.

I'm planning an author event at the Anderson County Public Library on Sunday, April 13th at 2 p.m. I'm going to be talking about "Writing about Small Town, America in the Sixties." We're going to be doing some just for fun trivia about the Sixties and have some door prizes. I want it to be a fun afternoon for everybody. What trivia question would you ask about the Sixties? Even if you aren't old enough to remember those olden days, you might still be interested in what went on then.

Hope you all have a great week and that next Sunday we'll be enjoying some warmer Spring sunshine again. Next Sunday is my mom's birthday. She's the greatest and we love celebrating with her. But we'll skip the candles. No need involving the fire department. Just kidding, Mom!

Signing off for now. Ann