Eight years ago, a few seniors who regularly gathered at what would become the Townsend Community Center in central Columbus came up with the idea for a soul food supper. One that everyone in the neighborhood could come to. One that would include some of the “old” foods families don’t seem to make so much any more. The dinner proved to be such a hit that, on March 6, a packed house sat down to the eighth annual feast.

“The first one was such a success, we couldn’t stop,” said Pauline Lee. At 79, Lee is the queen of the butter rolls. More about them later.

The concept for the supper first grew out of casual conversations about recipes at what was then the Charles Brown Gym.

“We talked about old times and how things have changed and thought we’d just bring some of the old dishes out and invite people to try them,” said lead organizer Annie Barry. “And it’s just awesome; it’s amazing how much knowledge these ladies have.”

There is, of course, traditional fried chicken and catfish, but also chitterlings (chitlins, if you prefer), barbecued pigs’ feet, oxtail soup, collard greens and neck bone, crackling bread, dressing, black-eyed peas with ham hocks, cornbreads, jelly cakes, potato pies and most other down-home vegetables and desserts one could name. The cooks donate all the food and do the work. It’s the same community spirit they show when helping with local observations of National Night Out on Crime or in preparing Thanksgiving meals to be distributed in the community.

Of rolls and oxtail

It’s a fact that Pauline Lee’s butter rolls are in high demand at the supper. “Butter roll” may be something of a misnomer for these decadent pastries — thin homemade crusts folded around a rich mixture of butter, sugar, vanilla flavoring and cinnamon and then baked in a casserole dish, with half-and-half in the bottom.

“Oh, they’re so famous,” declared Barry, describing Lee as a sweet spirit and dynamic cook. Lee takes accolades in humble stride. She’s been making these rolls for more years than she cares to recall.

“My mother made them way back when, when I was raised in the country and we were milking the cows and churning our own butter,” said Lee, who moved from the county into the city in 1957, when she married. Making the rolls today is a little easier, she admitted, what with the convenience of store-bought milk and butter — even crusts, if you don’t feel like making your own.

There is no written recipe, just years of experience and savvy judgment. “I could show somebody how to make them better than I could give anyone a recipe,” Lee laughed.

Hilda Fox prepared another specialty Friday night — oxtail soup. Don’t be stumped by “ox.” The tail involved is actually cow, available at local grocery stores. The Crawford native makes the dish frequently for her husband and children.

“It’s something like beef stew, but better,” she said of the soup ripe with carrots, onions and potatoes. “When you’ve got a lot of children, you add in a lot of things to make the food stretch.”

Oxtail used to be one of the least expensive items in the store, “but then everybody got to eating it and now it’s one of the highest priced,” noted Fox, who used to cook at the Gilmer Inn Hotel and Ramada Inn restaurants. Paired with her crackling bread and hot jalapeno cornbread, the soup makes for a filling meal. As did all the dishes made by numerous good cooks who contributed to tables laden with food at the community center Friday. The ample menu and neighborhood atmosphere complemented a program that included a presentation of colors by local youth, some music, a showing of photographs by Birney Imes and an address by the Rev. Craig Morris on the evening’s theme, “We’ve Come This Far by Faith.” It’s a way of honoring Black History Month, as well as passing on the community torch, Barry said. A way of nurturing the ties that bind.

“This is a gathering of family and friends in a pleasant environment, talking to each other … people just going around talking and hugging,” she said thoughtfully. “Sometimes people get such busy schedules you don’t have that time you can just talk to people — not a text message, not on the phone, but face to face.”

Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.