The taste of May

May breakfasts: A Rhode Island tradition

by Johnette Rodriguez

The Romans kicked it off with a festival honoring the goddess Maia. The English went "a-Maying" on the first of day of the month, gathering flowers, crowning a "Queen of the May" and dancing around a Maypole on the village green. But such pagan observations were trounced and denounced by the Puritans. That brings us to Rhode Island and its homegrown May breakfasts. Was it the state's anti-Puritanical streak rearing its head when the women of the Oak Lawn Baptist Church came up with the idea of a fund-raising breakfast for May 1, 1868? Or just an agrarian attachment to celebrating the burgeoning flowers and trees?

Whatever the origin, May breakfasts took hold and bore fruit from one end of the state to the other. Oak Lawn is in its 134th year; other church breakfasts date to the '30s and '40s. And they've branched out to a wide variety of venues: fire stations, granges, a historic house, a bird sanctuary, an aircraft museum, and a high school cafeteria. Some are fund-raisers. But at almost all of the breakfasts, there's a feeling of community ritual, a sense of coming together to have fun and enjoy the food and friendship.

I'd tried a few May breakfasts over the years, but it wasn't until I did a concerted sampling last spring that I finally understood that you don't go just for the food (although knowing where the best jonnycakes are served is a definite plus!). From the family-reunion that takes place each year at the First Baptist Church in East Greenwich to the neighborhood get-together at the Snug Harbor Fire Station, the trick is to become part of that family or that neighborhood for the duration of your repast.

At the First Baptist Church, I was seated next to Carol Boulay. She lives in Stonington, Connecticut, but comes back to the church she grew up in every year for the May breakfast. She was eating with her mother, great-aunt and her aunt's husband. Each table had a muffin basket; hot-off-the-griddle jonnycakes were brought by aproned gals; and everyone could step up to the buffet line for scrambled eggs, a huge slice of ham, baked beans and home fries. But the pièce de résistance at First Baptist is the home-baked pies, 77 of them last year, ranging from custards to fruits, from raisin-cranberry to coconut cream.

The next one I tried, with husband in tow, was Greenwood Community Church in Warwick. Once again, we found ourselves welcomed to a table of folks who were catching up on old times, Mike Koczan and his wife Shorty, and Lynn Kramer and her son Brady, among them. Brady said he wouldn't miss the May breakfast, and he flies in from San Diego each year to help out. In addition to the spread I had experienced in East Greenwich, there was home-baked coffee cake and terrific homemade apple pie.

Another May breakfast that's become very much a community event is the South Kingstown Rotary's meal at the South Kingstown High School Cafeteria. John Ticknor makes the biscuits; Chris Heisler brings in beautiful bouquets for the tables; Al Gadrow and Tom Wheeler provide breakfast music on drums and piano. Local Rotary members often buy and distribute tickets to local families and social service agencies.

Our foray was an unusual stop, at the Quonset Air Museum's "Fly In/Drive In May Breakfast," where you can take a close-up look at four helicopters and several planes, reading their service history and recalling war headlines they might have been a part of. The home-cooked food was bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes, potatoes, juice, and coffee, but I never did find out if anyone actually touched down on the nearby runway for a refueling of cholesterol.

Closer to home, I peeked in on the breakfast at South Kingstown Forest Fire Station, Number Three, which featured the addition of bagels and cream cheese and a fresh fruit cup. Another attraction was the Kids' Fire Awareness trailer parked outside for families to tour. Kids can also clamber into two different fire trucks at the Snug Harbor Fire Station, Number Five. There, the home fries were sparked with a bit of onion, and the jonnycakes were the best I've tasted anywhere in Rhode Island. Seconds were served as fast as you could ask for them.

St. John's Episcopal Church ("the red church") in Barrington is a runner-up for its jonnycakes, along with Danish, croissants, sausage and eggs, cereal, fruit and muffins. My introduction to the conviviality of May breakfasts was initiated a couple years ago at St. John's, by three elderly gentlemen who alternately posed me riddles, told me jokes and flirted up a storm at my table

Two places that require reservations are the Norman Bird Sanctuary's annual Birds & Breakfast, in Middletown, and the 28th annual May breakfast the the Smith-Appleby House Museum, in Smithfield. At the latter, you dine in 18th-century surroundings at one of three sittings; at the former, you can go on a guided bird walk before or after one of the four sittings.

At the historic Congdon Street Baptist Church in Providence, formed by the congregation from the African Union Meeting House, and set in an unusual Tuscany-styled building from 1874, you'll find grits, but no pie -that's reserved for church suppers, at which you're apt to find the best sweet potato pie this side of Atlanta.

At St. Martin's Church, whose May breakfast benefits Amos House and the Camp Street Ministries this year, and where reservations are required, there are several unusual items on the menu. In addition to three meats (ham, sausage, bacon), fresh fruit, hot breads and eggs cooked to order (no scrambleds), there are pancakes, baked beans, jonnycakes, homemade pies, French toast and creamed chipped beef on toast or codfish cakes. There are also plants for sale.

And at the grandmother of them all, Oak Lawn Community Baptist, they will be serving their traditional clam cakes and cornbread with ham and eggs. Oh, and home-baked apple pie. How can you beat that? Since there are approximately 75 May breakfasts that take place around the state, throughout the month of May, check out hometown newspapers and watch for signs outside churches and fire stations. This pagan-inspired festival has inspired some great Rhode Island cooking. Don't miss it.

The line-up

First Baptist Church, 884-2322. May 5, 6:30-10 a.m.; $5/$2 kids/under 4 free.

Greenwood Community Church Presbyterian, 737-1230. May 1, 6-9:30 a.m., $5 /$2.50 kids.

South Kingstown Rotary, 789-7713. May 6, 7:30-11 a.m., $5/$3 kid/under 5 free.

South Kingstown Fire Station, Number Three, 789-8354. April 29, 7:30-11 a.m., $5/under 8 free.

Snug Harbor Fire Station, Number Five,

789-0409. May 6, 7-11 a.m., $5/$2 kids/under 5 free.

Quonset Fly In/Drive In, 294-9540. May 12, 8-11 a.m., $6.

St. John's Episcopal Church, 245-4065, May 1, 6:30-9 a.m. $5/$2 for kids/free for under 6.

Norman Bird Sanctuary, 846-2577. May 20, 6:30-11 a.m. $10; $12 at door; $5 kids; under 3 free.

Smith-Appleby House, 231-9498. May 1, 7:30, 9 and 10:30 a.m. $6.

Congdon Street Baptist Church, 421-43032. May 5, 7:30-11:30 a.m. $4/$2.50 kids.

St. Martin's Church, 751-2141. May 6, 7 a.m.-noon. $8/$5 kids.

Oak Lawn Community Baptist, 944-0864. May 1, 6-11 a.m., $6/$3 kids under 10.