‘I Don’t Eat Everybody’s Potato Salad!’ Recipe

Serves 5

Prep Time: 20 to 25 minutes

Cooking Time: 12 to 15 minutes

By Ryan Mitchell

Suggs Christian Temple is the name of our home church in Wilson. My grandparents were cofounders of the church, and their names are still on the church walls. Granddad co-owned the land and gave it to the church to be built in 1978. For the Mitchells, church on Sunday was law in our family. All of us went to church, even my grandfather. Church for me was the best time to see all my friends. The Sunday service was always good, but to play with all the kids from my church in the park next door was the highlight of my childhood. The food and the hospitality that went into post-church was so amazing to me.

Every First Sunday, we partook of bread and wine, and we would commune by washing one another’s feet. A lot of Black churches have moved away from that tradition. We washed one another’s feet up until the late 1990s. It was an act of service, humbling yourself in front of your neighbors. The women washed each one another’s feet, and vice versa with the men. They were country boys who didn’t put on shoes until Sunday. You can’t recreate that kind of humility today; you have to believe in that type of community service based in scripture. I sat next to my granddad so that we could wash each other’s feet. Granddad would say, “We understand the service, but my baby ain’t going to be washing everybody’s feet, y’all could chill with that.” It was the smelliest and best of times.

Reverend Denmark Suggs was our original pastor. Our church pastor’s anniversary dinner was held every year, and this is when Reverend Suggs would ask my grandmother to make the potato salad. Only a select few church members were asked to make the potato salad. First Sunday, my grandmother would always cook for our fellow parishioners. She always made sure our favorite dishes were on the menu so that she wouldn’t have to cook for us after church.

So when we say, “I don’t eat everybody’s potato salad” in the Black community, that means either the person didn’t know how to season or prepare potato salad in the old way, or their home was unclean. I recall older Black women at church saying, “She might have all kinds of stuff in her house. I don’t know if I want to eat her potato salad.” As a child, you hear all the gossip at church.

Reverend Suggs always visited our house. My grandfather and he were fishing buddies. Pastor knew how clean my grandmother’s house was and that her kitchen was always spotless. You could eat off the floor in my grandmother’s house, and my grandmother’s potato salad was legendary. We served it at our restaurant, pig pickin’s, church and every family function.