The Oklahoma State Fair is a nostalgic event for me. I remember attending 4-H competitions at the Beckham County Extension Office as a kid and submitting recipes, sewing projects, and other crafts in hopes I would take home a blue ribbon in the Oklahoma State Fair. And you bet your sweet ass I did. This week I thought I would take a little trip down memory lane and revisit my Oklahoma Extension Homemakers Golden Anniversary cookbook, which is filled with hundreds of award-winning recipes from 1935-1985. And here are the 8 strangest recipes I could find.
Hominy Casserole
The strangest thing about this cookbook is not how many variations of recipes for Hominy casserole I found (which was eight), but how many people in Oklahoma who consider Cheez Wiz to be a seasoning.
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Easy Stroganoff
Well it looks like I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth. I made fun of our local cooks for using Cheez Wiz to spice up their dishes. But after looking at this recipe for “easy stroganoff,” I have to give the hominy casserole ladies props for at least using some sort of flavor enhancer. Their recipes look like Guy Fieri’s wet dream compared to this one.
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Cock-a-Leekie Soup
The fact that this is also a dish with absolutely zero seasoning unfortunately is not the most unappetizing part of it. This soup name “Cock-a-Leekie” sounds like what someone who went through an Oklahoma public school abstinence-only sex education course would call ejaculation.
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Heavenly Salad
There are two major things that bother me about this recipe. 1. It uses the term “congeal,” which is immediately unappetizing. 2. There’s no actual vegetable to this salad. If food like this is what Oklahomans are considering to be “heavenly” nowadays, no wonder so many people are leaving the church.
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Easy Cider
Dear God. If nuking Red Hots candies in the microwave in a cup of apple juice is considered “cider,” then dropping watermelon Jolly Ranchers in your Zima should be considered a handcrafted cocktail.
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Texas Hash
I found three definitions of hash on Google, none of which match this recipe. Cross Canadian Ragweed once sang, “Those boys from Oklahoma roll their joints all wrong.” But at least we Okies have better hash than Texas.
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Easy But Good Pie
The last time someone described pie as, “easy, but good,” they were talking about your mom.
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“Better than Sex” Cake
In the 6 cookbooks I’ve inherited from my great-grandma, this recipe has made it into every single one of them at least once. This is either a really good cake recipe or a generation of women had really bad sex.
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Hayley has mastered that cider recipe. Follow her on twitter @squirrellygeek
