This SC family’s Sunday dinners are a viral sensation on TikTok. Take a look

Tiffany Spradley and her extended family have Sunday dinner together most every week. They rotate homes and group text on Thursdays to make sure there’s no overlap.

It’s a tradition across the country, most especially in the South. Say Sunday dinner and most people get that warm feeling of family gathering (although some may be paralyzed with fear about what they are going to cook).

Spradley, who lives in Gaston, has taken Sunday dinner and mashed it up with something new — TikTok.

One fall Sunday in 2021 she decided to film everyone’s contribution. She called it Sunday in South Carolina.

For anyone who’s ever been to Sunday dinner, the fare is familiar — some sort of meat — a favorite is Spradley’s mama’s meatloaf, and then all the sides — fried okra, butter beans, green beans and potatoes, rice, and so much more with biscuits or rolls and desserts galore!

Every inch of the countertop is covered.

Spradley begins each post saying, “Allright, it’s Sunday in South Carolina” and then narrates each dish.

The early posts garnered respectable views, 30,000 or more, and then one day about three months later, a post featuring her mama’s meatloaf went viral — 2 million views.

“I’m a 40-year-old person who needs to be on TikTok like a 12-year-old,” she said.

Spradley has posted about 100 videos, most about the food, but she’s also taken her viewers to Stumpers Grocery, her mama’s last day of delivering mail after 30 years, and Scarecrow Alley in Swansea.

She is a married mother of three children — 6, 4 and 2 years old — who relishes family time and is aware that each video will serve as a reminder for her children of the importance of family and the role food plays.

Spradley’s so-called real job, which she has no intention of leaving because she loves it so much, is secretary at one of the Gaston schools she attended. Her wife, Jessica Spradley, is a paramedic. They met at a Southern Baptist church and have been together 16 years.

Other dinner regulars are her parents, Cindy — called MawMaw — and Champ Spradley, her brother known as Uncle Bunny and his wife and daughter. Then there are cousins and friends who join in from time to time. No matter who shows up, there’s food to eat.

Uncle Bunny, real name Edwain, is a certified BBQ judge and insurance agent. His wife is an engineer for the S.C. Transportation Department. They met in preschool at the Gaston First Baptist Church. Their teen daughter Morgan is quite the pastry chef. They live in a home built in 1906 in St. Matthews.

Her parents live in downtown Gaston. She said she uses the term downtown loosely. There’s not much there. Her father works as a carpenter for the University of South Carolina athletic department.

Granddaddy Champ’s specialty is boiled peanuts and bacon.

So many memories of the people and gatherings that came before are tied up with their Sunday dinners. The holidays at Nanny’s — her great-grandmother — that grew so large they had to move to a local church fellowship hall, when everyone looked forward to great aunt Hazel’s dressing.

There are the cookbooks from Shiloh United Methodist from the 1960s and 1970s that include so many recipes from her family members.

Watching Tiffany’s mother make scratch biscuits on a red peninsula countertop in her home, Tiffany on one side, her brother on the other, are more fond memories. Each would get a little bit of dough to shape, however, they wanted and cooked with the regular biscuits.

Cindy Spradley doesn’t measure anything so it’s hard to replicate them. Tiffany has tried.

Not long ago, Tiffany branched out with a website to include merchandise and recipes (including those scratch biscuits, as best she can). She’s also on Facebook.

She thinks the popularity of Sunday in South Carolina stems from people wanting to remember a simpler time.

“Some people just like good food,” she said. “But there’s also the nostalgia of it.”

She hears from people all over the country. Some have moved away and remember their days growing up in the South.

Remembering comfort food.

“To cook is transferring love to people,” she said.