What Happened to Sunday Dinners?

Sunday dinner use to be the family watering trough – everyone would get what they were doing done and come together around the dinner table to feast and pay homage to the week gone by. 

 Baked chicken, sweet potato waffle fries and wild rice - OUR Sunday dinner
(click to enlarge- back space to return)

When I was growing up Sunday dinner was only an occasional tradition – if company was in town or if it were someone’s birthday that week, then we’d all gather and break bread.  And when we’d gathered on any given Sunday, it was always at Gram’s house. Gram was our culinary matriarch.  She had the inherent knowledge that a home cooked meal was the glue that binds a family together. Holidays, birthdays and anniversaries were always celebrated at Gram’s dining room table.

Truly authentic Sunday dinners were something I imagined intensely ethnic families were more in tune with, like Loretta Castorini’s family in Moonstruck. Their Sunday dinners were filled with lively debate and loving disagreements over a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.

Moonstruck - Loretta and Ronny at Sunday dinner

At Gram's house it was more of a mild mannered midwestern gathering, the biggest debate was usually over the latest movie on the top ten list. The feast consisted of roast turkey or a ham and you could always count on mashed potatoes and gravy. When Gram died so did the family dinner gatherings - the glue that bound us, gone. We started our own families; many of us moved on and thus passed a beloved tradition that will not soon be forgotten.

Gram & me circa 1966 (click to enlarge- back space to return)

Regardless of the ethnicity of the Sunday dinner, it’s a tradition deserving of preservation. I personally vow to create one Sunday dinner once a month. Seems like an easy enough task, we’ll see if it’s actually achievable! Wanna join me?