Kansas City News Blog

Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

Branson's Country Music Cookbook

Author: The gleamin'est stars in Branson's cubic zirconia firmament
Publisher: Anderson Publishing, Branson MO
Date: 1992
Discovered at: 2nd Chance Thrift, 1229 E. 63rd Street
The Cover Promises: Your six-string is a place setting.

Representative Quote:
page 153, “Heat Doritos in oven.”

As you might expect, professional obligation has sent your Archivist to Branson, Missouri, the first U.S. city with an economy based entirely on crap. It's been years, though. At the time, I was amazed to discover that the gift shops were packed with figurines featuring the kind of old-timey watermelon-eating caricatures of black people that some of my older relatives collect. Stranger still, these pick-a-ninny knick-knacks were invariably stickered “Made in China,” which might be globalization's greatest triumph. We have managed to outsource racism.

In the years since, I have been assured by Missourians that there's nothing racist about Branson or its collectible mammies. Reading Branson's Country Music Cookbook, though, has done nothing to calm my suspicions. As editor Edward Anderson's introduction demonstrates, in the Ozarks even the typos drip with old-world prejudice.

While proofreading this cookbook, one of the recipes called for it to: “Coon in Oven.” Well, of course it was meant to read “Cool in Oven,” and I changed it. But I thought it was a rather regional typographical error, rather Ozarkian, I thought. There may be other “Coons” in the oven as you read through here. I hope not.

Only in Branson would anyone think it necessary to add that “I hope not.”

Anderson continues:

Whether it's a coon in the oven, a bat in the belfry, or a fox in the henhouse, though, I am extremely proud to be bringing this cookbook to you, and extremely proud to have compiled all of these entertainers together in this “country music jambalya,” if you will, a mixture of tastes that I hope will be pleasing to your palate. In spite of any “coons in the oven."

A dream for anyone who mistakes Frito Lay snacks for actual ingredients, Branson's Country Music Cookbook offers Show-Me State delicacies like “American Lasagna” and “Louise Mandrell's Bacon-Cheese-Tomato-Pie.” Headshots of the biggest stars accompany their down-home recipes, but many of the second-tier performers allow us a peek into their kitchens.

Here, a grown man who doesn't realize that the nickname “Droopy Drawers” disqualifies him from recommending recipes.

Funnyman Ray Stevens, whose recent work sticks it to Mexico and the victims of Hurricane Katrina, offers up a decades-old photo and this corn chip-topped patriotic delight.

And then there's the Norris Twins, fresh from Glamour Shots.

Their failure to work Fritos into a recipe means they probably hate America.

BONUS CRAP!
Recipes From Old Cape Girardeau

Author: Historical Association of Greater Cape Girardeau, MO
Date: 1977
Discovered at: 2nd Chance Thrift, 1229 E. 63rd Street

While Branson might be Missouri's piss-in-a-cup Las Vegas, it doesn't hold a monopoly on Show Me State cookbook star power. With astonishing foresight, the Historical Association aimed bigger than the Droopy Drawerses and the Andy Williamses of Branson's Country Music Cookbook.

Instead, this Mississippi river town landed the toughest get of all: no fewer than four recipes from Mrs. Rush H. Limbaugh, Sr.

Yes, that Mrs. Rush H. Limbaugh, Sr.

Even in a book filled with Calico Coleslaws and Christmas Jumbles, her mega-ditto inventiveness stands out. First up, a dessert seemingly dedicated to her most famous son.

And here she indulges in some mystifying ice-cream numerology.

Anyway you figure it, it adds up to tastiness!

Finally, her masterpiece.

Since your Archivist has always had a weakness for celebrity recipes named like prom themes, I had to try it out.

Step one: combine lime Jell-O with canned pineapples and olives. The result looked less like an underwater paradise than tires floating in a swamp.

Step two: mix another box of Jell-O with cream cheese and Miracle Whip. Once it has set, place it on the swamp-tire mixture.

A little-known fact: In the early '80s, Mrs. Limbaugh worked in R&D at Nickelodeon.

Step three: for the love of God, do not expose it to pets.

Monday afternoon, Pitch staffers joined me for a taste test. Reaction was mixed.

Jason Harper: “At first, when you put it into your mouth, you think you're not going to gag. Then you bite into one of the olives, and it's all over.”

Lorna Perry: “It's brain-like. It's Jell-O at first, and then there's this explosion of salt. Hey, are there any painkillers in this?”

Perry: “I like how it's all-natural. The only thing it needs is a big slice of bologna on the bottom. Or some Vienna sausages.”

Peter Rugg: “This explains so much about how Rush grew up. He never had a chance.”

Eric Barton: “I like it. I would eat that. I like everything that's in here.”
Rugg: “Yeah. Individually.”
Barton: “I have everything you need to make this in my refrigerator right now.”
Harper: “In my house I probably have everything I need to make a bomb. That doesn't mean I do it.”

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