c. 2006 Religion News Service

PORTLAND, Ore. _ From old-time box socials and parish hall basement potlucks to today’s ethnic festivals and dinners, churches have long raised money through cooking.

But the benefits of church meals are more than just financial. Cooking and sharing traditional dishes is a way to make a culture tangible, to give it substance that can be savored and shared with the next generation as well as with people of other heritages.

The keepers of the flame _ those who plan and staff these functions year after year _ are often, although not always, the women of the parish. Meet three veteran church cooks who typify their church’s spirit of giving back:

Serving Food and Serving Others

As a young girl growing up in southern Louisiana, Teletha Benjamin recalls, she stood on an apple crate while her mother taughter her how to scrape carrots, peel potatoes and turn out a good “sauce,” better known as roux. Making a good roux is fundamental to thickening gumbo, a Creole specialty that she expertly cooks today, often for a cause.

Years ago, gumbo was cheap, because families could get most of the ingredients _ shrimp, crab and fish _ free. “Dad made sausage. You raised your own chickens,” she says. The dish became a household staple.

“We were not wealthy, but we were taught to share,” she says. “I believe no one is born into this world bankrupt. You’re gifted with gifts for you to share. I see cooking as one of those to share.”

And she has, largely through her church, Immaculate Heart Catholic Church in North Portland.

She and two sisters-in-law were part of a core group that initiated gumbo dinners, first for auction, then as a separate church fundraiser 30 years ago.

The annual dinner, featuring both gumbo and jambalaya, traditionally is held the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, “the last weekend to be frivolous before Lent,” Benjamin says. Since its inception, the dinner has become more expensive than most church dinners to put on, mainly because seafood and sausage are no longer inexpensive.

“It has a lot of benefits, more than raising money,” Benjamin says, which is part of the dinner’s appeal to the retired social worker. “It’s about being a part of a team. It gives the parishioners a chance to meet. You should hear the laughing in the kitchen. You have to do a lot of chopping _ gallon bags of celery, onions, garlic and parsley beforehand,” which takes up a whole day, with other days spent mixing together the seasonings, cleaning the shrimp and cutting up chicken. It’s a labor-intensive dish.

Benjamin’s not sure how much longer she can continue gumbo-ing.

“Next year I’ll be 70. I don’t see that as old and decrepit, but it’s difficult to stand and work for 14 hours. My limits are there.”

Keeping Heritage Alive

In the basement of the Polish Hall of downtown Portland, Ludomir Cieszkowski (pronounced Cheh-SHKOV-ski) is a one-man stuffed-cabbage-roll-ing machine. He needs to crank out 120 cabbage rolls to serve to his customers here at Grandpa’s Cafe this Friday night, in addition to the post-church crowd that comes on Sunday mainly parishioners from St. Stanislaus Catholic Church next door.

While the last of the cabbage heads are boiling to soften the leaves, he gently kneads together 20 pounds of filling ingredients _ ground meats, rice, caramelized onions and seasonings.

“You could do this in a mixer, but it needs a man’s hands,” he says, baiting the three women documenting his technique.

While making festival cabbage rolls is largely the Polish church women’s domain, for two years Cieszkowski has been comfortable joining them. Perhaps it’s because as a child in Warsaw, he learned to cook from watching his mother; “We didn’t have TV at the time,” he jokes.

Longtime Polish festival-goers annually sample traditional Polish dishes, such as hunter’s stew, kielbasa, potato pancakes, cheese blintzes, pierogi (similar to pot stickers), cabbage rolls and Polish beer _ 12,000 bottles at the 13th annual event last September.

This year it took separate morning and afternoon crews four days to stuff 6,400 cabbage rolls for the two-day festival.

Eleven years ago, he and his wife, Malgorzata Cieszkowska, and three children moved to Portland from Southern California. They quickly located St. Stanislaus Catholic Church _ a place to share a sense of community, in part, because Polish is still spoken. While the couple still speaks Polish to their children, the two younger ones no longer like to speak the language. They prefer answering in English. And, their father says, shaking his head, they’re no longer interested in folk dancing with him.

Bit by bit, heritage can slip away.

The cabbage rolls are tucked in their pans. After two hours of baking, they’ll be done, ready to be sauced and served.

A New Generation

At the Greek Festival’s pastry and cookie tent, golden-brown loukoumades are heaped into little pyramids, nestled in cardboard takeout baskets. The towers threaten to topple, but the warm honey drenching the miniature puffs keeps them glued in place.

A favorite deep-fried snack at coffee shops in Greece, they’re doughnut holes without the doughnuts, says Christina Meletis, who’s worked the booth for 10 of her 12 years at the festival.

Meletis has been one of 200 volunteers who help make the grandmother of all Portland festivals a success for 55 years running.

At 48, she’s part of newer generations carrying on the tradition.

Loukoumades are among the dozens of confections synonymous with the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church event held each October _ just like the spit-roasted whole lambs tended to by the church men. During the three-day festival, kitchen workers go through more than a ton of flour for the mountains of loukoumades alone, Meletis says, not to mention another dozen confections.

At the cooking station _ only one in a long stretch of cookie and pastry booths _ a specialized machine automatically plops the balls of dough into a deep-fat fryer. The puffs quickly turn golden, are scooped up and bathed in a bowl of honey while still warm, then dusted with cinnamon.

The women prepare and freeze some treats as early as June. But during the week before the festival, women are baking and packaging delicacies every day.

Unlike many other traditional Greek pastries, cookies and cakes here, loukoumades can’t be prepared ahead; the church women must prepare them on the spot.

As the festival begins, catchy Greek music fills the air, along with the aroma of roasting lamb and garlic. Husband Tom is among a half-dozen men swiftly cutting up meat for long queues of hungry patrons.

Because of the festival’s extensive offerings _ including sit-down dinners, prepackaged pastries to go, deli items, jewelry, clothing, books and cookbooks, this has to be one of the most labor-intensive of church festivals. But unlike some longstanding festivals that eventually run their course, this one keeps on going and going.

KRE/RR END DURBIN

(Barbara Durbin is a staff writer for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore. She can be contacted at barbaradurbin(at)news.oregonian.com.)