>> PAYTON: I hope you're hungry, because I would like to remember what that feels like.

♪ Hello and welcome to "Flyover Culture," your guided tour of pop culture in the Midwest.

I'm Payton Whaley.

Now, the Midwest is full of lovely, delicious delicacies like this, and this and those, not that, and those, but that is not at all what we're here to talk about today.

No, today, I want to talk about the recipes that time forgot.

The ones that have been collecting dust in the back of your family's church cookbook.

And to do that, I need a very special guest.

So with me, from WFIU's podcast and radio show "Inner States" is Alex Chambers.

Alex, thank you for being here.

>> My pleasure, I think.

>> PAYTON: You think.

We'll find out.

So, Alex, before we get started, you host a show called "Inner States."

Would you mind just telling us real quick, what is "Inner States"?

>> So "Inner States" is a weekly culture podcast.

I talk with artists and people from all around Southern Indiana and beyond, but I like to talk with people who aren't necessarily thought of as, like, culture makers also.

>> PAYTON: How often do you have people on to make them suffer?

[ Laughter ] So we've done food on "Flyover Culture" before.

Way back when, we had Kayte Young from WFIU's "Earth Eats" along to eat some lovely, delicious, horrible-for-us, gas station food.

That's not what this is.

This is also not the food that has been passed down for generations lovingly and remixed and kept alive.

This is stuff all from the 20th century.

>> Okay.

>> PAYTON: We're also gonna kind of go back in time as we go.

>> Great.

>> PAYTON: And it starts us in 1975 at the advent of instant pudding mix.

Have you ever had one of these dessert salads?

Which are two words that should be a crime to put together.

>> Right.

Yeah.

Occasionally, in distant memory, back closer to the '70s.

>> PAYTON: So we are going to start with what is called watergate salad.

This was introduced by a company called General Foods, which is now Kraft Heinz, as a way of combining two of their great family of products Jello and Cool Whip.

This came out in -- or was introduced, I should say, in 1975, with the advent of instant pudding mix.

This time, pistachio flavored.

>> Hmm.

I wondered about the green.

>> PAYTON: This -- this has its roots in the Midwest because it was given the name watergate salad by a food editor somewhere in Chicago.

Exact name unknown.

Has nothing to do with the Watergate Hotel, the Watergate scandal, but it was all going on around that time, and so they wanted to kind of make it pop.

It was initially called -- and this is going to kind of reveal a little bit, pistachio pineapple delight.

All of this came prepackaged in a can.

None of it was fresh.

Just the way we like it!

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my kitchen passed me here.

We are going to cook some things.

So we've got our mes in said places, and it's a mess here.

Don't look at that.

But we are going to get cooking.

It's going to be something.

Let's do it.

We are going to get started with watergate salad.

Is this a salad?

Is it from the Watergate Hotel?

Does it have anything to do with the Watergate scandal?

No.

Here's what you'll need.

Pistachio flavored instant pudding mix.

We are blocking out all brand names until they give me money.

Crushed pineapple, chopped walnuts, and marshmallows.

Oh, and about half a container of Cool Whip.

>> So it's dessert?

>> PAYTON: It's dessert.

>> Actually, this is a question.

How was it served?

Do you know?

Like, was it served as part of the meal?

Was it served as dessert?

>> PAYTON: Sometimes it's served as a side.

Sometimes it's served as dessert.

>> Okay.

>> PAYTON: Today it's going to be our appetizer.

Full disclosure, I hate pineapple.

I hate the smell.

>> I'm Sorry.

>> PAYTON: I hate the taste.

I hate the texture.

I love pistachio.

Mixing the two together, which is the first thing you do, the pungency.

Once I added the juice of the pineapple to it, that smell started really coming out, but it was, like, sickly sweet.

It's not -- ugh.

It's like a pistachio smell that kind of burns your nostrils, as fun as that sounds.

>> Right.

Before we started shooting, you were saying that this had a really strong smell that you were struggling with.

>> PAYTON: Do you want to smell it?

>> I haven't really smelled it yet.

Yeah, it actually kind of smells familiar, like, I think I must have had something along these lines.

>> PAYTON: Sometimes it's made with mandarin oranges.

Sometimes -- >> Yes.

Right.

>> PAYTON: Sometimes it's made with other fruit.

Kind of whatever you got in a can that you've forgotten about.

Look at that.

What in the Shrek is this?

>> I'm going to take my salad or dessert spoon here.

>> PAYTON: Yes.

Down the hatch.

>> All right.

That's very sweet.

>> PAYTON: It's very sweet.

It is punch-you-in-the-teeth sweet.

>> It's very sweet, but -- and it's weird.

Like, I don't feel I grew up eating this.

Like, we never had it at my house.

>> PAYTON: Right.

>> My parents tended to cook from scratch kind of stuff, but it still feels really nostalgic for me.

>> PAYTON: Okay.

>> Like, it's totally bringing back the '80s in my case.

>> PAYTON: Just because it's all just sugar?

All sugar, all the way?

>> No, it's that combination of flavors, like the Cool Whip and the pudding mix, if that's what it is.

>> PAYTON: It is.

>> It's something about that particular mix of flavors, like, I remember this.

>> PAYTON: I remember a pink version of this.

>> Okay.

>> PAYTON: I don't remember if it was cherry or strawberry or something like that, but some -- I remember the marshmallows.

I remember the walnuts, but some kind of pink fluffy thing.

I hate the pineapple so much.

>> I'm kind of liking it.

>> PAYTON: Okay.

Do you want to take it home?

>> I don't think so.

>> PAYTON: Thoughts on watergate.

I mean the salad, not the scandal.

>> It's okay for a bite or two.

I think that's -- that's where I would go.

And it's -- I mean there's the nostalgia, just like I have a little bit of nostalgia for the scandal as well.

[ Laughter ] >> PAYTON: I don't recall.

>> Not that I'm really old enough to have experienced it, but -- >> PAYTON: If you like pineapple, again, you might like it for one or two bites.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> PAYTON: It's very simple to put together.

It took all of five minutes, which I do appreciate.

And that, I think, I can kind of see why this would have gotten popular.

It's very visually striking.

Very unique flavor.

>> This particular one is green, which makes it look like a salad.

So you might as well serve it with dinner.

>> PAYTON: Might as well.

Or serve it to a guest before you eat other equally heinous things.

>> It's only slightly a scandal.

>> PAYTON: Hmm.

Actually, of all three of these recipes, the pie is the only one I have tasted before.

>> Okay.

>> PAYTON: Like any good chef, I did not taste any of these while I was cooking them, because I wanted to make sure this was first, you know, exposure to all of it.

>> Yeah.

>> PAYTON: This is not one of my family recipes.

These two, I both got from my grandmother, from her -- I believe her church cookbook.

This I have not tried before.

This is bologna soup, which I believe I mentioned to you.

And you said, boy, all the things you gave me options for sounded pretty all right, except for bologna soup.

The thing I was surprised with is how few ingredients there are going on in this soup.

The entire time I was thinking, boy, wouldn't this need some sort of green thing?

I could not tell you the last time I've had bologna.

I forgot it looked like that.

I have not had bologna since I was a child, and I forgot how wet it is.

Hmm.

Eat up!

Also going into this thing are onions.

One onion.

It does not say how to prepare it.

So I went ahead and minced that.

Same with three potatoes.

It doesn't say what kind of potatoes.

It doesn't say how to prepare them.

So I made them kind of bite-sized, just used regular russet potatoes, and then lastly some tomato juice.

It should be a pretty basic soup, all things considered, but we'll see how it turns out.

And while I was cooking it, I thought, you know, hey, this would be good, like, what if I saute the onion first?

What if I, like, you know, do some stuff to the potato?

I didn't do that, because that's not how the recipe was intended.

So this recipe is from 1958 from a woman named Virginia Riggs.

This recipe has a few things in it.

What it doesn't have, salt and pepper.

[ Laughter ] At no point during this was the recipe, like, hey, do you want to season this to how you like it?

So -- >> Um, personally, I feel like that would be a thing that maybe was, like, just an unspoken assumption.

>> PAYTON: Well, the way I see it, if it's not in the recipe, I'm not doing it.

Now, I've done videos for "Earth Eats," where Kayte has made some delicious, all natural, healthy, stocks, veggie stocks, chicken stocks, um -- hey, Kayte, what kind of stock is this going to be?

What kind of nutrients we got here?

When's the last time you had bologna, Alex?

>> Probably about the same time as the last time I had Cool Whip salad.

>> PAYTON: It's been a minute.

It's been at least since I was a young child.

>> Yeah.

>> PAYTON: Do you remember, was it bologna and cheese loaf?

Did you ever have that?

>> No, I never heard of that.

>> PAYTON: Little squares of cheese injected into the bologna.

I don't know how I'm alive.

>> I think I may have seen a commercial for this that I thought was, like, a joke.

>> PAYTON: It's not a joke.

It's very serious.

As I was dicing up the bologna, the knife really glides through bologna something fierce.

To the point I'm kind of concerned.

We've been -- we've been delaying this.

>> We have.

>> PAYTON: And it's probably cold at this point, but bologna soup.

Cheers!

>> Cheers!

>> PAYTON: Get a big old bite.

Get all of those ingredients unseasoned.

>> Cheers.

>> PAYTON: Yeah, it's cold.

You know what that needs?

It needs salt.

[ Laughter ] >> And less bologna.

>> PAYTON: There's a lot of bologna.

It asked for a pound bologna, which I will tell you, is a whole package of bologna.

>> Is there water available?

[ Laughter ] I'm not, like, much of a processed meat person, and bologna in particular.

It's just like that reaction you were having to the pineapple.

It's a bit of a challenge.

>> PAYTON: It's very chewy.

>> I'm feeling -- um, yeah, okay.

>> PAYTON: Don't throw up on camera.

That's going to be really sad.

[ Laughter ] >> I'm feeling just a little bit of that -- that desire.

Gag reflex.

>> PAYTON: This is a one-bite soup.

>> Definitely.

>> PAYTON: It's thicker than I thought it would be.

Um, you okay?

>> Yeah, no.

I think I'm okay.

I'm just preparing myself to say something a little bit more thoughtful also, which is just that it tastes -- I'm trying to, like, reflect on actually how it tastes too.

>> PAYTON: Right, right.

>> Not just the gag reflex.

It reminds me of, like, canned soup on some level.

>> PAYTON: Okay.

If beige was a flavor, that's kind of where I would place it.

>> Yes.

>> PAYTON: The thing about the onion and the potato is that they just kind of -- the onion doesn't have anything done to it.

So both of those just kind of absorb whatever flavors they are sitting in, and right now that is a heck of a lot of bologna and a heck of a lot of tomato juice.

So if you like -- I don't know -- bologna and ketchup sandwiches, which I know some of you sick freaks do, this is the soup for you, I guess.

You want to find some water?

>> I would not mind a sip of water to cleanse the palate before we go on to this.

>> PAYTON: I wonder if he's going to come back.

The last recipe of the day, we took a little break.

You did not throw up, thankfully.

You were holding it together like a true dang professional.

This is vinegar pie.

>> Hmm-hmm.

>> PAYTON: And this is the only one of the three that I have tried before.

However, this recipe was very strange.

I know how it sounds, but this is actually the only one of the three that I have had before, and I remember being pleasantly surprised by it.

So let's see if I can also pull that off.

Doubtful.

This asks for a double boiler.

I assume we are going to make, like, some kind of custard is the filling to this pie without baking it.

The baking instructions were very confusing on this one.

I will put it up just so you can all see I'm not insane.

I believe it wanted me to kind of cook the custard filling in sort of like a double boiler kind of deal.

Pray for me.

I'm going to add our beaten egg, let it set up a little bit just for safety.

I don't know safety.

Don't listen to me for safety.

And then my bootleg double boiler.

And it says to cook this for just two minutes, but that doesn't seem like a whole lot.

I could not get it hot enough to, like, actually cook the egg.

And as much as I am okay with serving you this, I did not want to give you salmonella and serve you raw egg.

So I did bake it a little bit.

The crust might be a little overbaked because there was some weird stuff.

Change of plans.

The double boiler thing was not getting me anywhere.

So we're going to try this cool new technique where you bake it.

You bake the pie.

You put it in the oven and you bake it.

So the pie shell was a little bit done.

So it might get a little crispy, but I just popped into a 350-degree oven.

Going to keep it in there for about 20ish minutes, keep an eye on it.

It's very full.

I've got a cookie tray underneath it to catch all the stuff that will inevitably fall off, but we'll see how it goes.

This could be a monumental failure.

So, yeah.

See you on the other side.

This recipe is from 1922.

>> Okay.

>> PAYTON: This is from Marie Benton.

I read one story online that the recipe originated as, like, a challenge, as sort of in the like, "Little House on the Prairie" era, as like, you know, oh, you can make a pie out of all of this stuff, but can you make a pie out of vinegar?

And so what is in this, lots of sugar.

Just a little bit of apple cider vinegar, but not as much as I thought.

I thought the vinegar would kind of be the star of the show, but just a little touch of it.

It called for lemon extract.

I thought I had lemon extract.

So it's got some lemon juice in it.

>> Cool.

So I just want to note a couple of things about it.

For one thing, it looks like something that you might, like, paint on your walls.

>> PAYTON: Okay.

>> Or, like, use to take paint off of your walls, but I'm actually kind of intrigued.

Because I do think -- it's making me think about the way that, like, fruit tends to be somewhat acidic.

>> PAYTON: Right.

>> And the acid in the fruit is what makes a pie kind of pop.

>> PAYTON: Right.

It smells very acidic.

>> Yeah, it does.

I was like...

So, wait, there's no, like, cream or milk or anything in it?

>> PAYTON: Nope.

>> It's just sugar and eggs?

>> PAYTON: A little bit of flour.

>> A little bit of flour.

>> PAYTON: A couple tablespoons of flour.

>> Hmm.

>> PAYTON: So, yeah, it's got that kind of like -- >> Yeah, it's pretty eggy.

>> PAYTON: -- custardy.

>> It smells eggy.

>> PAYTON: I mean, first thought, it's fine.

>> Yeah.

>> PAYTON: It's like totally edible.

>> It's not bad.

>> PAYTON: The vinegar is a little too much.

It's, like, on the -- on the -- a little bit of an after burn, honestly, but you get the apple flavor from the apple cider.

And it's not the worst -- it's not the worst thing I've had in last 20 minutes.

[ Laughter ] >> Definitely not that.

I mean, it's kind of like key lime pie.

>> PAYTON: A little bit, yeah.

>> Or a meringue pie, just without the meringue.

>> PAYTON: Although, it's kind of a brain buster in that, like -- like you said with the acidity, it feels like there should be some sort of fruit flavor.

>> Right.

>> PAYTON: There's really not.

>> No, no.

I mean, it tastes like apple cider vinegar.

>> PAYTON: I am pleasantly surprised that this came together to be edible because the way it was cooking last night, I was really worried about it.

It did sort of -- a word you always love to hear with food, it did congeal.

[ Laughter ] It is a solid food stuff now.

But I will probably finish this once we stop this thing.

>> We went back in time.

I feel like those are both celebrating, like, modern technology in food.

>> PAYTON: Right.

>> Whereas this is, like, actual ingredients that are real.

>> PAYTON: If the anecdote about it being a challenge is true, then that sort of -- it's more coming from the baker themselves and their technique and their ability to kind of put something together.

That doesn't make me wonder if we lost you for the rest of the episode because you had to step away.

[ Laughter ] So yeah, that will do it for the three recipes.

Mercifully, this is it.

I think I could probably say, but where do you rank these three?

>> Oh, yeah, you could definitely say based on what -- this is definitely top, and then the green stuff, and then the -- >> PAYTON: Bologna soup.

>> -- bologna soup.

>> PAYTON: As much as I despise pineapple, I would agree with you.

I would also put -- like, I could take multiple bites of that.

Can't do it with the bologna soup, I'm sorry.

>> Yeah, I wonder if this reflects on those decades, the food of those decades.

>> PAYTON: Damning.

>> Can we reckon -- can we rate the food of 1920s was top compared to the '70s, and then down to the '50s being the worst?

I don't know.

I wasn't around for any of those decades.

>> PAYTON: Honestly, it's all pretty bleak.

Alex, would you let me cook for you again?

[ Laughter ] Have I destroyed that avenue of trust?

>> I would let you cook me pie.

>> PAYTON: Okay.

I will take it.

>> Really any dessert.

>> PAYTON: Okay.

Before we let you go, where can people find "Inner States"?

>> They can find "Inner States" anywhere they find their podcasts.

>> PAYTON: Awesome.

That will do it for this episode and this season of "Flyover Culture."

Thank you so much for watching.

Thank you for subscribing, telling people about it.

Sharing it.

I really do appreciate it.

And until then, I'll see you next time.

[ Swallowing sounds ] I'm so sorry.

You can hear all the swallowing, can't you?