Sunday Morning Means Cake and Coffee: Black Women and the Joys of Cooking

Rarely do Black women and their cooking get attention outside of what they do in white kitchens. We are commonly portrayed as maids and cooks, but never as mothers and community members who enjoy what we do. Southern, Black women cook on numerous occasions, even competing with one another, and it is a tasty joy!

My mother’s chocolate cake. We tore into this cake before my mother could “clean it up” for a better presentation!

Here’s a secret: some Southern, Black women enjoy cooking for family, friends, and loved ones. In fact, we enjoy it so much, that I am having the darndest time losing weight. Banana pudding cakes are not exactly diet friendly, but they are delicious!

My South Mississippi childhood is saturated with rich food and strong coffee. In fact, some Sundays in many Southern households mean cake and coffee for breakfast! In New Orleans, it may mean biegnets and coffee. A strong cup of piping hot black coffee with a rich, cream cheese pound cake taste like heaven right before attending church.

My mother’s cream cheese pound cake with a homemade lemon glaze. That beloved pan is now discarded. It started “snatching” my mother’s cakes, and that is like blasphemy!

There are numerous occasions when Black women show off their culinary skills, and most of them involve church functions. There are Family & Friends programs, Pastor’s anniversaries, church Homecomings, and always holidays at home(Some of the best times of my life were spent in church, but that is another posting). Sometimes, a new recipe is all of the rage in the neighborhood, and every woman MUST try it out. I wonder if my mother remembers when they first learned of a new tuna casserole recipe? I can still remember how many tuna casseroles I tried out for like two weeks. A lady in the neighborhood passed it to my mom or aunt, then she passed it along and so and so forth. I never hated tuna that much!

Of course, the church occasions presented opportunities for unspoken rivalries and challenges. If my mother were not extremely shy, I would have taken her picture and interviewed her for this piece, but she insisted that I didn’t, so I will give you the run-down on how this goes: First, all it takes is for someone to say that Ms. Bessie (name is made up for this post) fries THE crispiest chicken. If Ms. Mamie is standing within earshot of the comment, it is on like a pot of neck bones! A tasty rivalry develops that has the potential to last for years, even decades, on end. Ms. Bessie and Ms. Mamie will use every church occasion that requires a dish to fry chicken. Then, one or the other wins based on the conversation of the pastor and pulpit guests.

My own grandmother would get highly offended if anyone remarked that someone else’s broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole were better than hers. So, for the next cooking occasion, she may use three different kinds of cheeses instead of the usual two. And on large holiday gatherings, I have watched my mother-in-law poke her chest out in obvious pride when someone would say, “She can feed good. Let’s come down here all of the time!” Her eyes get downright misty!

The same type of pride and competition go into pastries, puddings, and pies. While Black women’s cooking may not get the national attention it deserves, careful is detail is put into every cake. Once, my mother made me spend two hours patching a caramel cake that went no further than her dining room table. If her layers are not perfect, my mother has a BFMD!

In the rural Black South, nothing is more honorable than having a pastor eat at your home. These are not holidays, but just Sundays when the pastor visits a home for a good meal, cake, and smooth coffee. It is quite an embarrassment for a Southern Black woman if her home is in tip-top shape (according to her standards), and for the pastor to walk out of the door without wobbling. In fact, cooking is so important, that my aunt kept a sign in her kitchen that read, “Kissing Don’t Last. Cookery Do.” It hung right next to the wooden spoon and fork that decorate almost every woman’s kitchen that we know.

Tea cakes, pound cakes, the layer cake, buttermilk pies, egg pies, custard pies, peach cobbler, and apple cobbler are the pride of Black women of the rural South. Cooking is another way to say, “I love you.” Some of the most important marital advice I ever got came from church ladies of my childhood: “Never let your husband park his feet under another woman’s table.” We cook for the enjoyment of family and friends. We cook to boast. We cook to experiment. And for myself, I have come to enjoy cooking as a form of therapy each and every week.

It’s Sunday. It’s time for cake and coffee. I would share my teacake recipe with you, but as a Southern woman, it’s my prerogative to keep the secret to myself!