Eating SDA Style

(This is an essay I wrote for part of a Cultural Memoir Assignment)

One former Adventist friend of mine always says, “It was the table that fed me” in referring to our shared Seventh-day Adventist background. My friend was referring to the morals, values and spirituality of Seventh-day Adventism that we still hold onto, even though we disagree with the Church in many ways. I, however, can’t help but think of feeding in the literal sense. Seventh-day Adventism did truely feed us, but in very unusual ways.
Seventh-day Adventists have something they refer to as the “Health Message.” Just like the Mormons we have our very own prophet, only she was a woman and not a polygamist. Ellen White encouraged healthy living and vegetarianism in the Seventh-day Adventist church. In many ways this has been a blessing to the church. Adventists who follow the health message are some of the longest living folks in the nation. On the other hand it has brought a spirit of legalistic infighting over food, and culturally separated Adventists from the rest of the country. Other beliefs have separated us as well but food is one of the most prominent. Looking back though I only remember a little of the infighting and legalism and I mainly remember all the food we ate and the ways we ate it.
I grew up eating fake meat out of a can. There were choplets, nu-meat, scallops, fri-chick, linkets, big franks, vega-links, prime steaks, turketts and many more. Along with canned meat there were also many frozen delights that could be fried up such as stripples and prosauge. (aka Fake Bacon and Sausage). These products usually came from just two companies, either Loma Linda/Worthington or Cedar Lake. These are both vegetarian meat companies associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
When I went to SDA boarding school the Cedar Lake Company was right next-door. When I was a girl I would go to the big SDA Camp Meeting in Grand Ledge, Michigan and stay in my grandmother’s motor home with my grandma, aunt and cousins. Grandma would take us to the Worthington or Cedar Lake display tents where we could sample many varieties of canned meaty goodness. . I loved walking from both to both and trying all the samples.
Grandma’s house on a Saturday night meant popcorn with Lowry’s Seasoning Salt, little to no butter, and fruit Salad. With this sacred meal we would close out the Sabbath. My mom, who considers herself a bit of a rebel, always made popcorn with lots of salt and butter, and gave us plenty of junk food as well. Grandma, however, was a saint of the church, and only provided us with the holiest of snacks. As I grew up I discovered that fruit salad and popcorn was a well know Saturday night phenomenon among most of my SDA friends.
Another prominent Adventist food is Special K Loaf. This is the vegetarian equivalent of meatloaf. It is made with cottage cheese, Special K cereal, eggs, walnuts, and Lipton’s onion soup mix. As I child I was forced to eat this when we went to visit my grandmother. To me it is the equivalent of brown mush, but I have other SDA friends who claim to like it. If you go to a church pot-luck this item will be on the menu without fail.
Another Adventist food tradition is called Haystacks. When Adventists have company it is the meal of choice. It is basically a do-it-yourself vegetarian Taco salad, only most Adventists don’t put out guacamole and only put out a mild salsa. This is probably because Ellen White wrote about the morally damaging effects of spices. However, I think the church may be falling into apostasy because later in college I noticed more people were adding guacamole and hot salsa to the menu. I am sure Ellen White is rolling in her grave.
Mrs. White (as she is usually referred to by SDA’s) singled out Mustard in her writings as an especially dangerous spice, and thus in the college cafeteria at Southern Adventist University (my alma mater), they only served a fake mustard. Her warnings against milk and cheese went unheeded though, because these items could be found in abundance. There were plenty of dairy substitutes available however. I think the reason for the fake mustard was to appease conservative donors to the school. In my “rebellious” household we ate mustard, so I had to find ways to sneak it into the cafeteria if I wanted to enjoy my sandwiches. The cafeteria also had the hypocritical practice of staying open on the Sabbath and making it’s students workers sign up for two Sabbaths a month of work. (SDA’s are not supposed to work on the Sabbath, unless they are doing something critical like nursing.) They said that this was so that the school could feed the students, but a ton of community members came in for Sabbath lunch. (The college I went to was the center of a large SDA community) Sabbath lunch was actually a big money maker for the cafeteria. Apparently it was okay to eat out on the Sabbath as long as it was in a sanctioned SDA facility.
I grew up going to an SDA church that was located on a college campus but not an SDA campus. The University Seventh-day Adventist Church, was blessed because it was located on the campus of Michigan State University. This meant many of our members were international graduate and doctoral students. They brought with them the culinary expertise of their native countries. Also, the native Michiganders in our church tended to be little wealthier and more cosmopolitan, and were a little more creative in the kitchen. When I went to my grandmother’s country church it was all green beans, potatoes and cheese formed into a variety of overcooked casseroles. I think a lot of this was due to the fact it was a Midwestern country church, not strictly because it was SDA, but American SDA’s in general are not very skilled cooks. Our vegetarian tradition, unlike that of the Hindus and Buddhists is fairly recent and hasn’t had the chance to break out of its Midwestern roots.
One beautiful tradition in the church is Sabbath dinner. Unlike some other Christians, shopping and going out to eat is somewhat verboten in the SDA church (unless it is an approved SDA facility, of course) Now things are changing and more people are going out to eat on Sabbath, but when I was growing up it wasn’t so. Either your family shared a special Sabbath meal together or you went over to another church member’s home. My family usually had spaghetti, broccoli, really really garlicky garlic break and Welches grape juice (the Adventist alternative to wine). This was always a wonderful time to come together as a family and as a community.
Until I was thirty, Welches grape juice was as close to wine as I got. Adventists don’t drink alcohol, nor do they associate much with people who do drink. This had led to a widespread misperception in the church that anyone who drinks will immediately become an alcoholic and be led into a life of debauchery, drunkenness, and wild living. The idea that some people go out to a bar to have a couple of drinks, talk with friends, then go home is foreign to Seventh-day Adventists. I have told my parents that I have meditated at a Buddhist temple, and that I don’t believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible but I am not ready to tell them that I occasionally drink. This, above anything else, would worry them.
Today I am still vegetarian at home, and only eat meat if I am going out to eat, or if there is turkey on Thanksgiving. I even stop by the Adventist grocery store near Chattanooga to pick up cans of veggie meat. I drink occasionally, but because I only broke with church teachings a few years ago I never went through that crazy college phase of drinking. In a many ways I am glad that the SDA church kept me healthy. I value that upbringing, even though I disagree with some of the ways it’s beliefs have been applied. I think that in order to make peace with the cultural you were raised in you have to learn to appreciate all the good it did bring to your life, to laugh at what is laughable and to not stress over the things that annoyed you. I have tried to do this with Seventh-Day Adventism. I hope that the church knows I still think fondly of her, and all her canned veggie meat.

Comments

Cassandra said…
I love your essay. SDAs can be crazy sometimes about their food. ;)
Grad Student said…
"Lipton’s onion soup mix" in special K loaf! Heresy! No wonder you liken it to "brown mush." Any enlightened Adventist would know that "G. Washington Rich Brown Seasoning and Broth" is what you add to special K loaf (see Messages to Young People, p 666).
agoodspirit said…
"I have told my parents that I have meditated at a Buddhist temple, and that I don’t believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible but I am not ready to tell them that I occasionally drink. This, above anything else, would worry them."

This is so true--soo true. I grew up SDA too and have questioned just about everything. But alcohol is my last holdout; for some irrational reason I just can't bring myself to drink because that would be the last straw. Many thanks for this post.
Lorelei said…
Thanks for a great read. I grew up SDA and broke with the Church years ago. I still consider myself a vegetarian (for the most part), and for some reason tonight was doing a search on Special K Loaf (or Cottage Cheese Loaf as we always called it), and found quite a few differing recipes. Yours shows Lipton's onion soup, which I find interesting. I found another that includes Diced Chik! My family recipe doesn't include either of those.

~Lorelei
http://theventripotentvegetarian.blogspot.com/
Anonymous said…
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Unknown said…
Greetings Ann, I too am alumni of Southern. And it seems we both have similar views of our past religion. It would be neat to compare notes, see if we both studied at the school at the same time, etc!
Anonymous said…
Granted, SDA's can be as rigid and hypocritical as anyone. The attitude is not necessarily because they are SDA's. The attitude is because that is who that person is. I grew up SDA in a small town in Michigan. It sounds like my childhood was quite similar to yours--popcorn, Sabbath dinners, banns on smoking and drinking,no going to movies or dancing, the "health message", etc. I went to a boarding academy and then to Andrews University. I was one of those student workers who was assigned kitchen cafeteria duty on my Sabbath once a month. I agree with some of your statements about the legalistic, hypocritical behaviors of SOME Adventists. You are right in many of your comments, but to make a blanket statement that American SDA's are not great cooks is not an accurate statement. I have known many SDA's that are excellent cooks and many that cook inedible meals--just like many other people regardless of their religion. It is not because they are SDA's, but rather because they are people just like anyone else. Some SDA's are hypocrites, some aren't. It would be nice if all Adventists were not lumped together because of the actions of the ones you have known. I, personally, have chosen to include meat in my diet. I can make a delicious Jambalaya with chicken and sausage or an equally delicious one that is completely vegetarian. And all Special K loafs are NOT created equal. I have had delicious ones and also ones I had to choke down to be polite. Adventism can be a very supportive community or a very legalistic, judgemental community based on the personalities of individuals--not based on the fact that they are Adventists.
Jonathan said…
I have to agree with anonymous above. I have bumped into so many people in the larger evangelical community who are just as disenchanted with their own non-denominational upbringing as you are with your own SDA years. Not only that, I've talked to ex-Buddhists, ex-Hindus and ex-Shintoists who think that their respective ex-religions are just ways to make money from poor people and keep them under control. My point is, that there's PLENTY of sarcasm and irony to go around, and it's MOSTLY because human beings are flawed—which is true even in atheist circles. Adventism suffers from the same symptoms as every other organization or non-organization that you care to associate yourself with, and it's pretty clear from SDA writings that that this is exactly as has been predicted.

But for most people, it is impossible to look beyond their own experience and realize that across the street, or across town, other people were going through similar disappointments, inconsistencies, and unfairnesses, in their own faith or non-faith communities. For most however, whatever they have suffered within their own collection of flawed humanity will be enough to permanently drive them into another band of imperfection, from which someone else is fleeing for the same basic reasons.

In the end, the biggest hypocrite of all is the one who fails to see the inconsistencies of their own choice.
Linda Hoag said…
I am an ex-7, and always will treasure my time at campmeetings with Grandma and cousins.
Dittosmom said…
Fell into this site, noticed this blog and was intrigued. No surprise, I am also a former SDA, raised in rural Michigan until age 12, moved to suburban Chicago, headed to boarding school at age 14 and spent the next 4 years staying in enough trouble that I attended a total of 3 by graduation from Cedar Lake Academy. Became an LPN at an SDA hospital, then left the church and haven't looked back for the past 45 years. Are all my memories and thoughts of Adventism negative? Definitely not. Would I raise my child as an Adventist? No. My siblings remained SDA's until my brother left the church some 20 years ago. My sisters remain members. I also eat very little meat and enjoy occasionally eating the faux meat cooked right. Have to admit that my mom's recipe for Special K Loaf, especially the next day, sliced and fried in butter (OK, what DOESN'T taste good fried in butter!) with a little ketchup and mustard, is awesome on a slice of good whole grain bread with a slice of sharp cheddar melted over it. Ummm getting hungry.... At age 19 having been a person who, from childhood on, never could seem to get the rules quite right, decided that remaining on the church books and not living the true life of a Seventh-day Adventist was not living an honest life, so I requested my name be officially removed. It was and I have never regretted it. Have returned to college three times in my adult life and found the difference in public education amazing. In religious-based education, at least in my era, you regurgitated information. If you questioned, you were considered impertinent. Libraries were limited. No computers, of course, also no newspapers, TV, radios or news magazines. Very limited secular information was allowed. Your opinion was rarely elicited and frequently disparaged. In college classes your opinions are required, your ability to support them essential. In other words, you have to think, not just regurgitate. You are encouraged to stimulate your mind and broaden your outlook, something I found was stiffled at every turn. I have a natural rhythm and as a small child was picking out boogie woogie on the piano. For this I was punished, then given lessons limited to classical and religious music. Any attempt at innovation on my part was severely discouraged to the point where I lost interest. If I could not play the things that made me happy, why play at all?

Feel like you are in the room with me. Someone to talk to who actually has been there and understands. Unbelievable. Although all our stories are different, they still have such similarities. Like campmeeting. Who in the world didn't LOVE campmeeting? And who didn't creep to the "dark side," inch by inch, looking over our shoulders, waiting to be grabbed by some unnamed devil as we did each forbidden thing. There are many things we can thank our upbringing for, but I think we could have had the same good Christian family upbringing with the same parents who were less confining and open to freer thought. Just sayin'

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