Curried Chicken with Rice Colombo (Oklahoma, 1920s, adapted)

Curried Chicken with Rice Colombo comes to us by way of a community cookbook published by the First Presbyterian Church of Enid, Oklahoma in the late 1920s.    Originally published in the Kansas City Star, it provides an interesting window into perceptions of “exotic” cuisine in this area.   Colombo presumably refers to the Sri Lankan port……

Cookies ‘N Fudge Salad (Wisconsin, 1988, adapted)

Cookies ‘N Fudge Salad is a throwback to the days a little bit of fruit made something a “salad”.   If the St. Casimir Catholic Church is anything like the churches I grew up in, this sort of so-sweet-it-hurts “salads” were a fixture of potlucks and multi-family get-togethers.  In some dusty corner of my brain I……

Coca-Cola and Jell-O Salad with Cherries and Pineapple (Tennessee, 1978)

The 1978 Thorn Grove Baptist Church cookbook has a dozen different variants on the gelatin salad, which is common for cookbooks in this era.   I love Jell-O, and I grew up in a community that loved these sorts of salads.  Most were simple mixtures of flavored Jell-O and canned fruit, sometimes with added dairy or……