# Church Lady Cooking At Its Finest **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 31, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789 "2003-01-31T03:00:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Joyfulgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f04885/32.png) [@Joyfulgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joyfulgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/41 "2003-02-03T05:06:28Z")
Welcome to Utah:[Jell-o capital of the world.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1156021.stm) We gotcher Red, Orange, Green, with peaches, with pineapple, with grapes, swirly Jell-o, Jell-o eggs, Jell-o salad (with spinach :eek: ), and that favorite Utah classic: Green Jell-o with carrots. Once you get past the Jell-o, you come across another Utah phenomenon: fruit salad. 14 different kinds, in all possible flavors and colors. I once tried a fruit salad, and found that it had _ham_ in it. Ham. I kid you not. And no Mormon function would be complete without the Cheesy Potatos, Funeral Ham, and Crock Pot cuisine (usually involving suprise! cheese, potatos, and ham). \* And just you try to get past the cookie table (yes, a whole table) without trying at least 4. I haven’t been to a Church Lady lunch in years, but lucky me, I get a whole battalion of Mormon relatives who serve the same exact things at family parties. Mountains of it. \*It’s actually kind of funny to see everyone trying to locate their Crock Pots after it’s all said and done. “I think that’s mine!” “Who brought the chili?” ---
**Author:** ![cadolphin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c37758/32.png) [@cadolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cadolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/42 "2003-02-03T10:47:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joyfulgirl \* > \*\*Welcome to Utah:[Jell-o capital of the world.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1156021.stm) We gotcher Red, Orange, Green, with peaches, with pineapple, with grapes, swirly Jell-o, Jell-o eggs, Jell-o salad (with spinach :eek: ), and that favorite Utah classic: Green Jell-o with carrots. > \*\* Let’s not forget the green (lime) jello with cottage cheese…made with mayo of all things… Yuck!!! And the two long tables of cassroles and yes, you guessed it, most of them have potatos and ham or chicken in them… And the large table of potato salads. I sure do miss living in Utah… Well, I do! I just don’t miss the jello. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![evilbeth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/evilbeth/32/2268_2.png) [@evilbeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilbeth)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/43 "2003-02-03T12:13:51Z")
I manage to snag every copy of every church cookbook that comes up for sale around here. There’s a lot of church ladies’ husbands that work in Security and they’re always selling cookbooks for their churches. I’m not sure there’s a casserole I don’t have a recipe for! ---
**Author:** ![swampbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampbear/32/467_2.png) [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/44 "2003-02-03T13:10:14Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally Posted by Joyfulgirl:_ > Welcome to Utah:Jell-o capital of the world. We gotcher Red, Orange, Green, with peaches, with pineapple, with grapes, swirly Jell-o, Jell-o eggs, Jell-o salad (with spinach ), and that favorite Utah classic: Green Jell-o with carrots. A table full of Hell-o molds and Church Ladies eyeing you to make sure you taste 'em all. :eek: Sounds like a Mormon Church Lady Jell-o checkpoint just might be the scariest of them all. I ask this question out of both intrigue and fear lest I ever encounter it…What are Jell-o eggs? Do I really wanna know? 😃 **evilbeth** , I’m with ya on the Church Lady cookbooks. I have this antique pie safe thing in my breakfast area. Three shelves (and I mean large shelves) contain nothing but Church Lady cookbooks. Just think, I could whip up at least a dozen different variations of broccoli casserole on a moment’s notice.😛 ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/45 "2003-02-03T13:41:39Z")
I should mention that I attended church for the first 17 years of my life, and no one ever served food for anything. Nor were there “church functions” other than weddings. Of course, the church sat something like 2 or 3 thousand people and had to do two services to fit everyone in. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/46 "2003-02-03T14:19:24Z")
My mom has a recipe for Spam Casserole. And it’s good. It’s macaroni, pototoes, spam and cheese. AND IT’S GOOD! Also, it’s ingrained deeply within the Church Lady Psyche. When someone’s sick, you make a casserole. When someone dies, you fry a chicken. Even though I had no where to take it, I had a overwhelming need to fry chicken on Saturday. \<\\> ---
**Author:** ![Joyfulgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f04885/32.png) [@Joyfulgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joyfulgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/47 "2003-02-04T22:16:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by swampbear \* > \*\* \ > > I ask this question out of both intrigue and fear lest I ever encounter it…What are Jell-o eggs? Do I really wanna know? 😃 > > \ \*\* They’re actually not too scary. Just Jell-o put into special molds that are egg-shaped. They usually show up around Easter and such. The only downsides are trying to add whipped cream and trying to keep them from sliding off your plate. Not only slippery, but they roll! You encounter some weird Jell-o shapes here, too. A certain aunt of mine is fond of making Jell-o in a brain-shaped mold. But not for Halloween, oh no. She makes them all year round. Try explaining _that_ to people! ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2003, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/48 "2003-02-05T00:45:30Z")
I’ve got a Church Lady recipe book which my mother and her various siblings and cousins and aunts compiled. It’s got the usual casseroles but also a few oddities such as Spaghetti Pie and Pork and Beans Bread. (I know the latter sounds grotesque, but it’s actually quite good.) ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2003, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/49 "2003-02-05T01:19:58Z")
Well, **KRC** , are we gonna get the recipe for that bread or what? ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2003, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/50 "2003-02-05T02:08:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ukulele Ike \* > \*\*Screw them Church Ladies. Fix Church Lady Food _yourself_. > > [Lutheran Church Basement Women](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0961343761/qid%3D1044024581/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-8868562-7791800). Possibly the funniest cookbook ever written. \*\* Ike, that is _not fair_, how the hell did you find out about this? What’s your midwestern street cred, hunh? 😉 Jeez, that’s just not right, ya no? My dad found that book one time when he was visiting my gramma in Fargo - he grew up with the stuff, every wednesday night at the United Lutheran Church in Grand Forks (gramma & grampa moved to the Big City when Dad was at UND). My personal favorites are “Jello For A Crowd” (three boxes of jello…and _one banana_), and the “Goulash Deluxe.” The goulash recipe is one of those brown-hamburger-meat-and-dump-cans-of-stuff-into-it things…and what makes it “Deluxe”? Why, an extra half pound of hamburger, of course. Seriously…when we buried my grandmother 2 years ago at First Lutheran in Fargo, I made the arrangements for the memorial service. From the Church Secretary’s perspective, the timing depended mainly on what sort of food we wanted: "Well, if you have a late morning service, we can serve a hot lunch - different kinds of hotdish, that sort of thing. But if you wait until after 12:30, we’ll have a cold lunch of open faced sandwiches and _bars_. (Of course! Bars! Ubiquitous, wonderful Bars, lemon squares and brownies - never just Cookies, halfway to Cake without being Too Much.) With cousins driving long distances to come, I had to opt for the latter. But it was lovely and right and made me remember, which is what these things are for, aren’t they? ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2003, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/51 "2003-02-05T02:20:37Z")
Okay, here is the recipe for the Pork and Beans Bread: 1 16-oz can pork and beans, drained 2 cups sugar 1 cup cooking oil 3 eggs 2 cups self rising flour 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. vanilla raisins or nuts, optional Mix first four ingredients until smooth; add flour, vanilla and cinnamon; add nuts or raisins, if desired. Bake at 325 for 45-50 minutes. Makes two loaves. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2003, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789/52 "2003-02-05T02:37:19Z")
Thanks! I’ll try it and get back to you! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/church-lady-cooking-at-its-finest/151789.md?page=2)