Those Nebraskan First Ladies were on some serious shit

i'll have whatever they were having

Hi, clowns!

Miss me?! I’ve certainly missed you. First of all, thank you all very much for the well-wishes. Cataract surgery went well and I seem to be recovering okay. The entire procedure was about as fast as a typical dental cleaning (like 15 fucking minutes), and though they gave me an interesting cocktail of drugs, I appear to have totally behaved. That’s too bad.

It did occur to me that if I had tried explaining this newsletter to my surgeon while I was messed up, she wouldn’t have believed a single thing I said. A hot dog snow cone? Jelly bean cassoulet? Did he just say three stuffed animals were his best friends? She probably would have thought the anesthetist had given me too much fentanyl.

But you all know better.

So here’s the backstory on today’s edition of the newsletter: Davida’s been doing a lot of reading lately, so we visited a used bookstore the other week to pick up some books. While she perused some literature, I rummaged through the cookbook section and unearthed this little gem.

It was a spiral-bound cookbook called The Nebraska Centennial First Ladies’ Cookbook.

The term “First Ladies” is a reference to the wives of former state governors in Nebraska, who contributed some recipes to the book, though the bulk of it is mostly recipes compiled from housewives across the state. It’s basically a church cookbook without the church. That’s fine, we don’t need The Lord’s stinky fingers messing with our meatloaf anyway.

The book was stained all over and absolutely crusty with decades-old food, which meant we obviously had to buy it. Davida leafed through it while we were sitting on the couch later that night, and I knew the thing was worth the eight bucks we paid for it when she started giggling.

Remember the time I asked you guys to send me your family’s worst recipes, and one of you sent me the one for pancake salad called stirum, and I made it? Well, the fine First Ladies of Nebraska have an official recipe for that. They also have a weird fucked-up recipe for iceberg lettuce and hot potato salad doused in bacon fat that Davida’s sister-in-law Mandy made for us once. (Which was shockingly good.)

But when Davida started shouting excitedly while reading one of the recipes, I knew I was in for something good. She handed me the book and directed me towards something simply called “Frosted Salad.”

For the most part, the recipe for frosted salad reads just like plenty of Jell-O salad recipes I’ve seen, with fruit (canned pineapple and banana), along with marshmallows and soda.

I suppose those things aren’t so wild, knowing ancient Midwestern cooking. But then I got to the last two ingredients and found out why Davida was laughing so hard. This Jell-O salad is topped with not one, but two fine cheeses, Parmesan and good-old processed American.

Adding cheese to Jell-O is an extremely inspired decision, one that’s usually made by college-aged stoners and also apparently housewives between the years of 1867 to 1967.

We walked to the store and got all the ingredients I needed, and I noticed that the walk back was a little difficult.

I didn’t think too hard about it until I finished unpacking the bag at home. That’s when I realized that aside from a lone egg and the bananas, the rest of the ingredients came off the shelves. I had practically lugged a bowling ball home. Those Nebraskan First Ladies must have had shoulders like linebackers, unlike mine, which are a fine shapely blob, thank you very much.

The recipe says you have to start by dissolving lemon-flavored gelatin in hot water.

I forgot how amazing Jell-O is as a product. The powder is a nearly snowy white, but as soon as you pour water in it, an intense color develops, in this case, a bright yellow. Frank Zappa warned us about eating this sort of thing, but the First Ladies recommend you actually cook with it. Metal.

Once the Jell-O cooled off a little bit, I added a drained can of crushed pineapple, two sliced bananas, a cup of miniature marshmallows, and a can of 7-Up.

Why were marshmallows so popular back then? People rarely add them to food now, except for maybe Rice Krispies treats or s’mores or some shit. The idea of adding them to Jell-O seems to have all but faded, but I trust the First Ladies with all of my heart.

Of course I had to break out the Bundt pan for this one.

After all, a dish this elegant needs to look that way too. You don’t just garnish Jell-O with American and Parmesan cheese for nothin’. I let the mold sit in the fridge overnight and solidify, or in the word chosen by the recipe, “congeal.” Mmm…congealed salad.

The next day, I assembled what was presumably the “frosting” portion of the frosted salad.

It started with a mix of pineapple juice, flour, sugar, and a beaten egg, and within 10 minutes on the stovetop, it had thickened, or should I say, “congealed,” into a curd. I set that aside to cool off, and prepped the next ingredient, which is one I’ve never used in my entire life.

Are any of you familiar with whipped topping mix?

When I saw it on the ingredients list, I thought it was an ancient product that didn’t exist anymore. But lo-and-behold, when Davida and I were out shopping, it was on the shelf in the baking aisle.

It’s this interesting powdered product that comes in little packets. You whip this stuff with a 1/2 cup of milk, and it basically turns into something akin to Cool Whip. Oh, and by the way, this shit is horrendous to prepare.

It starts off as a thin liquid, and when you start the electric beater, good luck, because the spatter is going to go everywhere. It’ll get on the walls, your hair, your copy of the Nebraska Centennial First Ladies’ Cookbook, your two shitty cats, and your spouse. I even got you with it. Go shower. Anyway, what I’m saying is whipped topping mix is now my mortal enemy.

Once I was done making the stupid whipped topping, I folded in the pineapple curd and let that chill out.

I also had to chill out after raging at the whipped topping mix.

Shaking the Jell-O out of the mold was a little tricky, but it did eventually plop onto my cutting board with a loud thwap that sounded like someone being slapped on their bare ass.

Speaking of asses, this thing totally looks like a perfectly symmetrical asshole.

I finished the frosted salad off with a sprinkling of coarsely chopped American cheese slices along with some shaved Parmesan.

The recipe calls for grated American cheese, but with all due respect, Mrs. Harold Kenfield, wife of the mayor of Holdredge, Nebraska, I’m not grating soft American cheese. We already know it’s a pain in the ass based off the time Davida made an olive wreath mold from a recipe she found in her mom’s belongings.

Hey, I thought the end result was cute, in a kid’s arts and crafts project sort of way. It’s clear I’d never survive in a fine dining kitchen. Or perform cataract surgery. Which is probably better for everyone, frankly.

And here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for, the taste test.

The good news is that this frosted salad is mostly tolerable, though it does feature a bunch of bizarre textures. I forgot how fibrous canned crushed pineapple is, and combined with the relative meatiness of banana flesh, it’s sort of got a strange dynamic going on. The marshmallows are completely lost, but that’s okay, nobody gives a shit about them anyway.

Notice I said “mostly tolerable.” That’s because the addition of cheese is a fucking abomination. The shaved Parmesan made each bite feel as if there was some sort of salty coconut in it, since when it’s cold, it’s waxy in the same sort of way. And the gel-like American cheese, which I’ve become all-too-familiar with recently, is such a jarring and salty addition in terms of flavor and texture that I don’t wholly understand its inclusion.

Basically what I’m saying is that it’s awesome and I wouldn’t change a single thing. Here you are reading a stupid newsletter about ridiculous food experiments, when really, all you guys should have been doing this whole time was flip through Midwestern spiral-bound cookbooks. Apparently these women had my gig on lock, and I never quite understood that until now.

Nebraska’s Centennial First Ladies, thanks for making this son of Korean immigrants feel like a corn-fed White Midwesterner through a bite of your time-capsule food. I humbly salute you all for your service, and I’ll be sure to make your recipes for Rice Royal Casserole, Salmon and Corn Special, and Egg Soufflé Salad (this one’s got lemon Jell-O and hard boiled eggs in it) in your honor.

Oh, and Mrs. Kenfield, I’m so grateful there wasn’t any mayo in this one.

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Thank you all for embarking with me on this journey into Nebraskan cuisine this week! What a delight.

As always—the most important thing you can do for the newsletter, if you’re NOT a paid subscriber, is to share it somehow, either via Substack’s app, by forwarding the email version to other people, or by whichever social media poison you pick.

This week’s edition is on the paid schedule, but I put a lot of work into this one, and wanted you all to join me for the trip, so it’s free today. I really missed you while I was recovering from surgery. But please remember to upgrade your subscription to a paid one—that’s the reason why Food is Stupid is able to exist.

Those of you who aren’t paid subscribers yet—you’ll gain full access to the archives, which I’ve noticed people really like to binge-read, and you’ll gain exclusive content about every other week. Plus, I’ve been working on this thing for over four years, and you have a LOT of catching up to do.

One last thing: I lost a dear friend last week. If anyone you know is struggling, please give them a call. Yes, a call. They might want to hear your voice more than you know. I didn’t know this circle of sorrow even existed.

Okay, everyone—as always, I love you all, and I’ll hop into your inboxes again next week. Be good to each other.