Sunday Suppers 2024
As American as apple pie—sitting down for supper with family, friends, and neighbors
By Christina Reed
The Hired Pen
Eastern Sierra, CA—Do you remember learning something about your family, friends, or neighbors around the Sunday supper table? Did you hear a funny joke from a relative that told you something about their sense of humor and personality, while you were passing a bowl of mashed potatoes? Were there moments of deep debate about a neighborhood issue, which you all took part in, while finishing dessert with coffee or iced tea? Did your family have Sunday suppers after church, as a part of the church community? Are there memories of smells, sounds, tastes, touches, or sights, which come to mind when you think of Sunday suppers? Do you remember how to set a table for folks, and the family favorites everyone came to expect at Sunday suppers? Where did you sit at the Sunday supper table?
So many of our human memories revolve around food, family, and the creature comforts they afford us. And, there’s been a movement afoot, since 2012 and Isabel Laessig’s blog, advocating saving Sunday suppers. A group of people began tossing around some ideas about having a National Sunday Supper Day, and now we’re celebrating on the second Sunday in January. Her questions about this important aspect of American life, and many other countries around the world for that matter, are centered on do families eating together, a tradition, is this notion dying out? Probably not.
“Sunday dinner is rooted in the agrarian mid-afternoon meal tradition, with a Sunday meal focusing on family in a post-urbanized society since this was the only day in which many families could gather,” the Smithsonian Magazine explains.
Sunday suppers have been around, at least the English ones, since 1791, when guests at a fancy Saturday night ball had too much to drink, and needed a layover at the castle. Once upon awakening, the hung-over guests needed some time to recuperate, and some say, “Hair of the dog,” was born on that Sunday morning. However, guests had created a kind of “brunch” meal, and off they went feeling quite a bit better. Meanwhile, in agrarian / farming / ranching America, the concept of a difference between dinner and supper was taking hold in the 1900s, with dinner being the main meal of the day, and supper being an evening meal. Farm and ranch work is dawn to dusk, hard work, so the main meal of the day was super important, and by dark, folks just needed a different, lighter fare, such as soup or a sandwich or fruit.
Sunday Suppers Across Our Country
It doesn’t matter where you travel in America, there’s a Sunday supper tradition waiting on a table somewhere. You can usually smell it first, before you see it, and that’s a genuine mark of a “grandma-like-memory” from everyone who’s had a family tradition of Sunday suppers. Typically, the Sunday supper features a roast meat of some kind, or fried chicken, or chicken and dumplings, or ham, or pork chops, or meat loaf, or chicken pot pies, or curry dishes, or collard greens and beans, or macaroni and cheese, or enchiladas and empañadas. In the West, it’s King Ranch Chicken, chili, and in California, avocados. Utah is famous for its “funeral potatoes,” with many recipes for many occasions. The East likes its seafood, manicotti, cassoulet, and lots of Philly cheesesteak. Mid-westerners are meat lovers, and stuffed pork chops, lots of corn dishes, and jello salads rule the supper table. The South love their Cajun chicken, and sausage gumbo, jambalaya, biscuits and gravy, and collard greens and beans. And, in the North, you’ll find classic cabbage rolls, Swedish meatballs, and cheese dishes as sides. There were fanciful desserts, which highlighted the cooks’ abilities to make cheesecakes, apple and cherry and peach pies and cobblers, and decadent and indulgent chocolate cakes. * Side note: Americans need to remember that we still have folks in their 80s, 90s, and 100s, alive today, who remember World War II rationing books, and as children, they lived through our nation’s worst Great Depression, to date, in the 1930s. Food security was never assured for these folks, and they live with the memories of these daily struggles. Sunday suppers are very important to these generations, widowers, single parents, and empty-nesters.
Great Expectations for Sunday Suppers
Sunday suppers across the country vary with the people who settled in the area, and their tastes, religious calenders, the seasons, the landscapes, and family favorites. Above all, Sunday suppers represented comfort food, company, family bonding, cooking together and sitting down at a family dining table / area. There were expectations of good table manners, according to Emily Post’s etiquette books, and it’s a fear of the older generations that, currently, children couldn’t muster up those common manners, much less set a table for 10…. It appears, according to some researchers, sports broadcasting has taken over Sundays, and the supper table. The use of TV trays being cited as a reason for this notion, instead of family sitting down around a real dining table, without the TV on….And, it also appears our current, jet-setting, internet-driven, ways-of-life aren’t conducive to the Sunday supper scene, for many. Pick a Tuesday or Thursday, then….
Meals and family matter. Manners matter. Cooking together matters. Slowing down to appreciate food, family, friends, and neighbors matters. Generational storytelling at the Sunday supper table matters. Recipes passed down from generation to generation matter. Sunday suppers following church matter. Learning about family history matters. There are 52 Sundays in a year…what is your favorite Sunday supper memory? Please, share among yourselves. And, “Thank you, for passing the mashed potatoes and gravy.”
¡Enhorabuena!