Church cookbooks: food, faith, and a way to honor women

Church and food go hand in hand, whether spaghetti suppers, potluck dinners, or thoughtfully prepared funeral meals. Everyone knows this church lady makes the best ham balls and that church lady always brings cherry gelatin salad with little marshmallows on top.

Kendall Vanderslice of Durham, North Carolina, says it’s no coincidence food plays such an important role in the culture of church. “When I embarked on a career as a pastry chef, I found that my love of bread transformed the ways I read scripture,” she says. “Fascinated by God’s use of food throughout the arc of the Gospel, I merged my work in the kitchen with academic study of food and theology.” She earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and master’s degrees in food and theological studies; her thesis topics were church meals and the theology of bread. 

Everyday extraordinary

Vanderslice’s passions for food and faith are perfectly blended in the spiral-bound, type-written treasures known as church cookbooks. She is currently undertaking a yearlong project of preparing church cookbook recipes from all 50 states and sharing the experience on social media. 

“For a long time, I have had this desire to dig deep into church cookbooks and see how they narrate the history of a church and a church community,” she says. 

The cookbooks also provide a unique source of historical context. “So much of our church history and even our food history is narrated largely through the perspective of men and people who are in positions of leadership,” she says. “But church cookbooks are written by women, just ordinary people. They’re one of the best pieces of history we have for how these women lived their daily lives.”

One of the hallmarks of church cookbooks is that the name of the woman who submitted the recipe is listed, whether or not she created the recipe herself. “These cookbooks give us the names of women that may not be recorded anywhere else,” Vanderslice says. “They are kind of a living legacy to women who have shaped their communities for generations, and they’re encapsulated in these books in beautiful ways.”

Many people have sent cookbooks to Vanderslice, and she found several at libraries and on eBay. “The very best ones are those that have been owned by someone before,” she says. “In some cases, the recipes are the least interesting part. It’s all of the marginalia, the notes that people have left, like the evidence that this was truly something that was used by its previous owner.” 

Vanderslice kicked off her project in August with a recipe from Richardson Heights Baptist Church in Richardson, Texas, which her grandparents founded and pastored. She started with her grandmother’s cinnamon roll recipe. Since then, she has made chocolate sauerkraut cake from Dunaway United Methodist Church in Winchester, Kentucky; Flossie’s okra soup from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Charleston, South Carolina; pineapple Jell-O salad from the Indianola, Iowa, First Baptist Church; and many more.

Surprise findings

Cookbooks from different areas reflect the culture of the immigrant communities and denominations who settled there. “Most of my Midwestern ones are Lutheran, and you do get a lot of Scandinavian recipes in them,” Vanderslice says. “And a lot of the Appalachian cookbooks have a Slavic influence because there were a lot of Slavic immigrants who came there to work in the mines.” 

However, the most popular or common recipes of these groups were often left out of the church cookbooks. “In Appalachia, there are no apple stack cakes in any of the cookbooks and that is a specialty there,” she says. “My working hypothesis is that the hyper-regional foods were those that everyone was expected to know when these books were being written so they weren’t included. At the time, they weren’t thinking of them as a piece of history. It’s interesting what is reflected but also what is not reflected.” 

Many cookbooks share recipes from outside regions. “Every church except for the Texas churches has a Texas sheet cake recipe,” Vanderslice says. They also often feature recipes from other religions or denominations. “These cookbooks help people connect beyond where they are,” she says.

Beyond the cookbooks

When she isn’t making church cookbook recipes, Vanderslice runs Edible Theology, an educational nonprofit organization she founded. It aims to help reduce loneliness and polarization by fostering shared meals and stories. It features a six-week Bake with the Bible curriculum for individuals or families and a Worship at the Table program for small groups or Sunday school classes.  

She has authored two books. “We Will Feast: Rethinking Dinner, Worship, and the Community of God” explores the dinner-church movement. “By Bread Alone: A Baker’s Reflections on Hunger, Longing, and the Goodness of God” weaves her faith journey with original recipes and discussions of bread’s role in church history. 

Vanderslice also speaks, teaches, and hosts workshops, including Bake and Pray, where participants share stories and fellowship while baking loaves of bread together.

Visit kendallvanderslice.com to learn more about Edible Theology and Vanderslice’s other projects, order her books, follow her on social media, and subscribe to her email newsletter and podcasts.