Out of The Books and Into The Fry Pan
Editor: Melanie Carden
“What I say behind your back I will say in front of your face, and I’ll say it slowly so you can understand. Yo’ pan ain’t cooking this fish fast enough.” From the other side of the room, I hear, “I was going to do something about Mahalia Jackson, but I changed my mind.” Back to the other side, “Turn the flame up under my pot, girl.”
Eight church mothers frying fish in the basement of the church for a Black History Month dinner. One mother has an old Jet magazine with Mahalia on the cover. There is more history in ten minutes of their conversation than in any book within the Black History Month display at Barnes & Noble book store. This history is accessible 365 days a year. Some of the women are dressed in African attire, others are in down-home attire adorned with head wrap and aprons, and then there are some in jeans and sweatshirts. As with most black functions, the real action is in the kitchen. The cooks are in there, and the other cooks are right outside the doorway, making sure that those in the kitchen aren’t talking about them or their pots.
“Girl, it is cold out there.”
“Baby, put your coat on before you go get that stuff out of the car for me.” I am nearly fifty, and they still call me baby.
The aroma of fish and cake and blessings are in the air. I am not quite sure where all the young men went, though it is Friday night. I guess I could assume. But, truth be told, the young men and women are noticeably absent. Gone to careers, gone to other aspirations, dreams, and priorities. Where they have gone has taken them away from this place of strength and love and homemade ice cream. Even as the basement crowd continues to grow, the church mothers never lose their focus. With roots in Mississippi cotton fields, Alabama tomato patches, Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas, they damn-near invented multi-tasking. Stories of struggle, wars, loved ones lost, and more importantly, survival. It is no mistake that our Black churches are filled with senior citizens. Part of the reason that they were blessed enough to become senior citizens was by not wandering too far from their history and our God.
The old men are dressed as if they just showered after coming out the field, replete with plaid shirts and overalls. They’re congregating over in the corner just like back home, back in the woods under a Mississippi magnolia tree. They talk about a TV program that was on last night that supposedly depicted the way it was. As they tell the way it really was, I hear,
“Mama. You got a brush in your purse?”
“I’m tired too. But my jaws ain’t too tired to eat.”
“When I’m sleepy, I ain’t worth a quarter.”
“That’s Eddie and Lillian’s son.”
There are children here. I wonder if they know how much history surrounds them—held in the minds and hearts of their parents, grandparents, and church family.
“Hey boy, don’t worry, you got a friend. What you writing? You writing about us? Wanna read it?”
Writing and praying. Praying that beyond the economy and war, we remember what is really important. That the study of black history begins in the kitchen, on a front porch, or in a church basement over fish and talk and real joy. It begins with the sharing between children—our children, and us.
“Who got the hot sauce?”
