Host Andrew Camp interviews Hugh Hollowell, pastor of Open Door Mennonite Church in Jackson, Mississippi and author of the memoir-essay collection Food Is Love, about how food and tables reveal God’s love, shape memory, and build connection. Hollowell calls the Last Supper his most compelling Christian story, arguing meals are intimate, mnemonic, and inherently communal, and that communion is scandalous because it includes people who fail us. He discusses Southern foodways, the Great Migration’s use of cooking to preserve home, and a long conversation about sweet potatoes with Senator Roger Wicker as an example of food humanizing opponents. They critique privileged food moralism amid Jackson’s food deserts and poverty, describe how “bad” celebratory foods and enslaved people’s ingenuity became valued cuisines, and frame cooking and writing about food as acts of care and political resistance. They close with reflections on church as support for weekday discipleship, lingering meals as welcome, and Hollowell’s favorite foods and stories.

Hugh Hollowell is a sixth generation Mississippian and is the pastor of Open Door Mennonite Church in Jackson, MS – a multiracial peace church formed in the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement. He is a writer and storyteller and has been the publisher of a weekly newsletter called Life is So Beautiful for more than a decade. Before becoming pastor at Open Door, Hugh spent 12 years working as a pastor among unhoused people and those struggling with addictions. This taught him much of what he knows about both second chances and grace, but not much that is useful at denominational meetings. He and his spouse Renee live in the Fondren neighborhood of Jackson, where they run a small scale kitten rescue and co-parent five house cats and seven chickens.

Hugh's website: hughhollowell.org

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(00:00) - Sponsor and Guest Intro
(01:32) - Food Memory and Communion
(20:11) - Privilege Shame and Care
(39:13) - Cooking as Resistance
(44:51) - Church Around the Table
(54:14) - Remembering and Last Meals