by Fr. Nicholas Beasley

Fr. Beasley took a deep dive into St. John’s cookbooks in preparation for our stewardship campaign, Let Us Keep the Feast. Read on for an ecclesiastical and culinary adventure that involves Jello, casseroles, and the Lord’s own table.

Our church has been eating together as long as we have been together. We raised money for ministry in our early days with spaghetti and pancake suppers, fancy teas, and oyster roasts. We have also published no fewer than five collections of recipes. In the last week, Faxie Watt, Jane Blair, and Rodger and Martha Stroup have brought three cook books to me older than the two most of us remember, Let’s Eat and Pig Out, from 1990 and From the Corner of Wheat and Holly, from 2019. Our cookbooks reveal changing habits of cooking and eating and the growing, changing life of our congregation, the people God has called together as St. John’s.

There are some funny recipes in our collections. “Sweet and Sour Hotdogs” calls for ¾ cup prepared mustard, 1 cup currant jelly, and 1 lb of hot dog slices. The instructions are sparse: “mix in pot on low heat; serve in chafing dish.” Faxie Watt tells me they are then speared with toothpicks for consumption. “Dormitory Grilled Cheese Sandwiches” invites you to turn your iron to the highest temperature, the one for linen, put a slice of cheese between two pieces of bread, wrap in foil, and then “iron on both sides until bread is toasted and cheese is melted.”  “Crunchy Tuna Salad” starts off like other tuna salads, but gets a can of French Fried Onion Rings at the last minute.  “Frosted Meat Loaf” is like a lot of other meat loaf but is dramatically frosted at the end with a mixture of shredded carrots and instant mashed potatoes (neither of which are mentioned in the list of ingredients).

Some recipes make claims to the action of God; at first glance, “Miracle Potato Salad” points to the mighty power of God. We think of the miracles of the Lord Jesus and read on with anticipation. On further review, it is only the inclusion of Miracle Whip that is miraculous.  “Glorified Brownies”  in our cookbooklet from 1955 might have you thinking of the glory of God, the glorification of Christ on the Cross, and his promise that we will be glorified as well.  But the glorification of these brownies amounts to the addition of a half marshmallow to each one, and some icing.

Other recipes claim distinction in more worldly terms:

• Peas Epicurean, which still starts with canned peas, and includes ½  tsp of something called “Accent.”
• Gourmet Green Beans with Cheese
• Crab Meat Casserole Supreme
• Rock Cornish Hens Imperial
• Queen Elizabeth Cake
• Gourmet Onions
• Fantastic Chicken Wings
• Fantastic Macaroni and Cheese
• Special Spinach Casserole
• Perfect Peach Cobble
• Utterly Deadly Pecan Pie
• Oliver’s Easy Pudding Pie
• Paula’s Famous Brownies
• Wonderful Blue Cheese Ball

For a while, St. John’s cooks were masters of congealed dishes, using jello, which had become popular with the advent of radio advertising in the 1930s. Most involved some mayonnaise in addition to the jello, sometimes some Cool Whip, a product from the era. A host of congealed things can be found in our cookbooks:

• Congealed Vegetable Salad
• Frozen Fruit Salad
• Blueberry-Pineapple Salad
• Shrimp Mousse
• Molded Asparagus Salad
• Congealed Lime Salad
• Cucumber Salad
• Chicken Mayonnaise Mold
• Shrimp Loaf
• Chicken Salad Gel
• Tomato Aspic
• Jellied Ham Salad Loaf

I think we should have a potluck of all congealed things next year. It might need to be a ticketed event.

Our cookbooks also include many recipes for casseroles, many with the essential ingredient:: Cream of Mushroom soup. There are seven variations on broccoli casserole alone!

• Broccoli Casserole
• Broccoli Custard Casserole
• Spinach-Broccoli Casserole
• Broccoli-Egg Casserole
• Broccoli and Rice Casserole
• Chicken Broccoli Casserole
• Tuna Broccoli Casserole
• Cabbage Cheese Casserole
• Eggplant Casserole (3x in our oldest cookbook)
• Squash Casserole
• Squash-Pepper Casserole
• Asparagus Casserole
• String Bean, Almond, and Onion Casserole
• Crab Casserole
• Cheese Casserole
• Shrimp Casserole
• Chicken Tetrazzini
• Chicken Casserole
• Chicken Tuna Casserole
• Hot Chicken Salad Casserole
• Chicken Mexicana
• Spaghetti Casserole
• Wild Rice and Sausage Casserole
• Oriental Bean Casserole
• Sausage Noodle Casserole
• Pork Chop Rice Casserole
• Hamburger Casserole
• Ham Casserole
• Fruit Casserole
• Chicken Divan
• Grits Casserole
• Curried Carrot and Pineapple Casserole

Cookbooks culminate in funny ways. The loose notebook one has a final chapter called: “Pickles, Jelly, Drinks,” a bit of a catchall. You can picture its editor or typist figuring out how to draw it all together. Let’s Eat ends with a section called “Men’s Recipes and Heart Healthy,” as though such strange things needed to be kept away from the normal recipes. The most recent cookbook concludes with “This and That.” Those sections speak the truth that things need to be organized but not everything fits into our tidy categories.

There is a little spirituality in our cookbooks. A Kitchen Prayer from Let’s Eat gives a busy cook a way to pray:

Lord of all pots and pans and things
Since I’ve not time to be
A saint by doing lovely things or
Watching late with Thee
Or dreaming in the dawn light or
Storming Heaven’s gates
Make me a saint by getting meals and
Washing up the plates.

Although I must have Martha’s hands,
I have a Mary mind
And when I black the boots and shoes,
Thy sandals Lord I find.
I think of how they trod the earth,
What time I scrub the floor
Accept this meditation Lord,
I haven’t time for more.

Warm all the kitchen with Thy love,
And light it with Thy peace
Forgive me all my worrying and make
My grumbling cease.
Thou who didst love to give men food,
In room or by the sea
Accept this service that I do,
I do it unto Thee.

You have probably noticed our theme for Sunday’s lunch and for our stewardship effort this year: Let us keep the feast. Our life in Christ is a feast. God’s abundant grace in Jesus Christ is continually put before us, served up in God’s Word, Christ’s Sacraments, and in the Spirit-guided life of the Church. We feast together at God’s altar in Holy Communion and at the many other tables of our common life; at Gravatt and Kanuga, in EYC suppers, foyer group dinners, and notably in potluck gatherings in our gym. Those crowd-sourced feasts are signs of the life of the church, offerings of our time, care, family traditions, and the money we spend on ingredients. God draws them together and a feast is made, a feast of dishes small, large, spicy, or starchy. God calls them all together, and the church needs them all to prepare the feast of salvation in Christ. Pick up your pledge card and make a generous pledge so that St. John’s can keep the feast in 2026 and share it with the world God so loves in Christ.

Learn more about other important updates in the latest church newsletter: The Epistle – October 16, 2025