Snacking State-by-State: Wyoming II - BAAAAAALLLLLLLSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Way back when I had started this project, I was contemplating doing the Rocky Mountain oyster for one of my Colorado recipes.  I opted instead for a nice Southwestern-style bison burger  However, I never completely let go the idea of trying out that most legendary organ meats, that which makes men (probably women too but definitely the menfolk) shudder - simply because of what part of the body you are slicing up and frying.  For my final Wyoming post - and my final regular State-by-State post (yes, this is, technically, the last one, though I've got a few more coming to tie it all up) - I've finally decided to tackle those balls.  Finally.

Official Name: State of Wyoming
State Nickname: The Equality State, The Cowboy State
Admission to the US: July 10, 1890 (#44)
Capital: Cheyenne (largest)
Other Important Cities: Casper (2nd largest), Laramie (3rd largest), Gillette (4th largest); Jackson (largest town, would be 10th largest city - this is the town in the middle of Jackson Hole) 
Region: West, Mountain West, Big Sky Country; Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Montana (north), South Dakota (northeast), Nebraska (southeast), Colorado (south), Utah (southwest), Idaho (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: bison (mammal), cutthroat trout (fish), western wheat grass (grass) 
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Native American (Shoshone) and frontier foods, especially beans, beef and bison; game animals such as deer, elk and moose; sheep; bread

For the few of you who still haven't figured out what I'm talking about: Rocky Mountain oysters are testicles.  Bull testicles.  And you slice them up and fry them.  I really haven't found any other recipes for them on the internet: you just skin them, slice them, bread them and fry them.  That's it.   But the difficult part comes in the prep work: these things have to soak for a while in water, and depending on the recipe, they then have to soak in milk.  This is after you complete the arduous task of carefully slicing them out of their tough pouch.  I actually did this wrong at first - and they turned out so not well that I had to try it again.  The following photos are from that second attempt.

If you are curious about trying this yourself, you can go to any good Latino or international supermarket for real beef bull balls (say that five times fast).  There are a few good such markets in the DC area that sell organ meats such as bull testicles (one or two in Prince George's County near Laurel comes to mind).  However, you could opt instead for bison balls instead of bull balls if you have access to them.  Strange as it may seem, in Baltimore I was able to get my hands on some bison balls (...ahem...) by driving up 83 to Gunpowder Bison, where they have all sorts of bison / buffalo organ meats.  And yes, they do have balls.  Since they were surprisingly cheap, I got a few - I spent about $7 or $8 for three frozen bison testicles - in case I messed up on one.  They only take a day in the fridge to go from rock solid to soft, squishy balls.

For the recipe, I found a few useful ones, but was entertained by the following video from Youtube user "maestrojed", which showed step-by-step how to make Rocky Mountain oysters while playing goofy music in the background.  The entire second half of the video shows reactions of people eating Rocky Mountain oysters (of course, it will not play below but you can play the whole video on Youtube).

The text for the video reads as follows:

A party born from a night of crap-talking and a challenge to try rocky mountain oysters. Using both Buffalo and Yak testicles we documented the prep, cooking and party reactions. [maestrojed 2010]

So it's even closer to what I attempt than I thought, since they're using buffalo balls too.  Don't ask me where to get yak balls.

The Recipe: Rocky Mountain Oysters

For your Rocky Mountain oysters, assemble the following:

* bull, bison or other large animal testicle - the fabled Rocky Mountain oyster!  Try to get more than one in case you mess up, but don't get TOO many, in case you just don't like them.  The ones I got cost me a total of about $8 for three of them.  I honestly thought they would be pricier, but I guess there isn't a big demand for bison testicles.  Bet you never thought you'd read those words, huh?
* milk (for dredging and soaking)
* cornmeal and flour (also for dredging)
* cayenne, garlic powder and salt (again, for dredging)
* vinegar (some recipes call for this, and the first recipe I used required it, but the video above does not.  You can do fine without it)
* oil for frying (of course, choose an oil with a high smoke point, like peanut or rice bran oil)

The ingredients shown above were from the first and more unsuccessful attempt.  Most of these didn't change, so I still used this photo.  However, I also assembled the following that are not pictured above, but were in the second and more successful recipe shown in the video:

* red wine (still had some from the handy screw top Bota Box of Cabernet Sauvignon)
* Tabasco sauce (actually did not have this on hand, so I picked up a small bottle)

Rinse your buffalo ball.  I decided to do just one at a time in case I wasn't too into balls.

Slice open the hard pouch, and carefully remove it from around the testicle.

Try your best not to cut open or into the testicle, though I found this difficult.

Are they sure this isn't Rocky Mountain brains?

Soak your denuded bison testicle in water for 30 to 60 minutes.

And then soak it in milk for as long.

Poach the bison testicle in boiling water for about five or six minutes.

And get ready to slice your ball.

It will be a bit hot to handle - okay, you can let it cool down a bit first.  Slice up your ball.

Now for the dredging part: have three bowls ready.  Dip each slice of testicle into each in the following order.  The first will have milk.

The second will have your powdered ingredients.

And the third will have your red wine and hot sauce.

Fry in hot oil for about three to five minutes, or until golden brown.  Eat with hot sauce.

Ummm, what can I say?  Well first of all, I've never eaten bison testicles before.  They are a little on the gamey side, though I suspect bull testicles would be as well.  I can't say I'm sold on eating these things again.  It isn't the mental block of eating testicles that gets me (note to self: refrain from whatever Brokeback jokes your very un-heterosexual mind is concocting as you type this).  It's the combination of the flavor - again, a bit gamey - and the texture.  I can't really describe it because I've never eaten anything like it.  It's one part spongy to ten parts soft and pudding-like, but a hard pudding.  It's a weird feeling in my mouth and the hot sauce doesn't do much to mitigate that.  But at least now I can say that I've had Rocky Mountain oysters, finally.

Now, does anyone want that last frozen bison testicle I have sitting in the freezer?  I'm probably not gonna finish it.

- - - - -

That's it!  That's the last post in this series!  Well, the last one that I had originally planned to do.  Yes, there is one more mashup coming up.  But what comes after that is one final, ten-post retrospective of different regions of the country.  And then after that, that will be the last post in this series.  For the first of those last ten posts, I am heading back up north to Alaska, a state I explored very little the first time around, to give one more go at the Last Frontier's unique seafood.  Last time it was salmon on a cedar plank.  This time?  Snow crab.

Sources:

Lee, Hilde Gabriel.  Taste of the States: A Food History of America.  Howell Press: Charlottesville, VA, 1992.

"maestrojed" (Youtube user).  "Balls: The Movie - Rocky Mountain Oysters".  Posted July 9, 2010.

Steele, Dennis, and Molly Myer.  "Bit-O-Wyo Beans".  Bit-O-Wyo Ranch, date unknown.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Wyoming" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Wyoming".

Snacking State-by-State: Wyoming I - Yeah, well I'm sick of beans.

Here it is!  I've reached the literal end of the State-by-State series with the last state in alphabetical order, Wyoming.  True, there are two Wyoming posts coming.  Plus, as I said in the final Wisconsin post, I am doing ten more of these to tie up things on a region-by-region basis.  But when I started on November 21, 2010, with my first Alabama post (which I later split into two posts), I had only hoped I would get this far.  Now here I am, folks.  Here I am.

Official Name: State of Wyoming
State Nickname: The Equality State, The Cowboy State
Admission to the US: July 10, 1890 (#44)
Capital: Cheyenne (largest)
Other Important Cities: Casper (2nd largest), Laramie (3rd largest), Gillette (4th largest); Jackson (largest town, would be 10th largest city - this is the town in the middle of Jackson Hole) 
Region: West, Mountain West, Big Sky Country; Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Montana (north), South Dakota (northeast), Nebraska (southeast), Colorado (south), Utah (southwest), Idaho (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: bison (mammal), cutthroat trout (fish), western wheat grass (grass) 
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Native American (Shoshone) and frontier foods, especially beans, beef and bison; game animals such as deer, elk and moose; sheep; bread

Like the rest of the Rockies and Big Sky Country, Wyoming's is a hearty mixture of frontier and Native American - in this case Shoshone - foods.  Native Americans would have subsisted on the ever-present beans, bears and bison.  And as our friends at the Food Time Line point out, the earliest non-Native settlers were prospectors, bringing their food traditions from Back East.  They quote Hilde Gabriel Lee's Taste of the States [1992] in discussing the earliest settler foods of the Equality State:

While the settlers were building their homesteads and planting crops, they subsisted on braised bear meat, venison steak, hominy cooked with dried beef, and sometimes rice with honey and cinnamon. Pioneer women soon became experts at improvising, For coffee they roasted anything that would turn brown over a fire. They used a Dutch oven for everything from boiling water to baking cakes [Lee 1992:235]

They likely used that same reliable Dutch oven for cooking beans, which were more of a staple in Wyoming than I had realized.  It was important for the sheep herders to get these cheap and widely available staples.  And as anyone who's seen Brokeback Mountain will know its most important social message of all, more so than its message of forbidden love between two cow hands in mid-century Wyoming: cowboys hate beans.

Jack and Ennis weren't the only cowboys to (have to) indulge in can after can of beans (all those beans).  Many a cowpoke had to do the same.  So it's no surprise that for my first Wyoming post I would go there.  But there are so many recipes for beans from Wyoming that it's difficult to choose one.  For certain, most of the recipes I've seen incorporate many kinds of beans together, so I was not going to escape that.  In the end, I used a bean recipe from Dennis Steele and Molly Myer at the Bit-O-Wyo Ranch in Cheyenne.  Theirs uses quite a variety of beans.  And I even got to break out my Dutch oven for this one, too.

The Recipe: Bit-O-Wyo Beans (Wyoming Beans)

For these Bit-O-Wyo Ranch beans you will need the following:

First, assemble all of the following types of beans (none of which was more than $1.50):
* garbanzo beans
* black beans
* baby lima beans (the only one I couldn't find in a can; I had to get a bag of the dried variety)
* kidney beans
* generic old baked beans

To add to that, get the following:
* bacon (yes I was out of bacon.  Sue me.  Was about $4.50ish at Harris Teeter)
* ground beef (I only needed half a pound, so I got as much - $7 per pound of Angus beef, so it only cost me about $3.50, again at Harris Teeter)
* Dijon mustard (had it)
* brown sugar (same)
* onion (less than a dollar)
* ketchup (I had this, too)
* apple cider vinegar (how can I be out of bacon but not this?)

If any beans need soaking - to wit: these baby lima beans - soak them overnight.

Next, brown your bacon and beef in a cast iron skillet.

Add to that your onions, and continue to cook until the bacon is rendered.

Next we're going to transfer everything into an oven-safe pot, like this Dutch oven, which seemed like the most logical choice for Wyoming Beans anyway.

Dump all your beans into your Dutch oven.

Add the mustard, ketchup, vinegar and brown sugar.

And then add the onion and browned meat.  I really should have rendered this bacon a bit more, I think, but it was fine.

Bake in the oven at 350°F for about 40 to 45 minutes.

And you end up with this hearty pot of beans!

Like I said, this is hearty.  It's a big mess of beans, I'll give it that - beans I would not normally throw together.  While I probably wouldn't eat these various beans together again, I would recommend this as a filling way to use up a whole mess o' beans.  And it is comfort food: nice, hot comfort food for a chilly day.  Unless you're herding sheep or something.  Speaking of which: let's have the love theme from Brokeback Mountain play us out as we eat our beans.

Sources:

Lee, Hilde Gabriel.  Taste of the States: A Food History of America.  Howell Press: Charlottesville, VA, 1992.

"maestrojed" (Youtube user).  "Balls: The Movie - Rocky Mountain Oysters".  Posted July 9, 2010.

Steele, Dennis, and Molly Myer.  "Bit-O-Wyo Beans".  Bit-O-Wyo Ranch, date unknown.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Wyoming" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Wyoming".

Snacking State-by-State: Utah II I/II - A sauce so simple it doesn't even get a whole post

Among other things, Salt Lake City residents rave over a condiment so simple to make you can do it in about a minute.  In fact, it is so simple that it doesn't even get a whole post.

Official Name: State of Utah
State Nickname: The Beehive State
Admission to the US: January 4, 1896 (#45)
Capital: Salt Lake City (largest)
Other Important Cities: Provo (3rd largest), Orem (5th largest), Ogden (7th largest)
Region: West, Southwest; Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Idaho (north), Wyoming (northeast), Colorado (east), New Mexico (southeast), Arizona (south), Nevada (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Beehive (emblem - for the honey inside it). Bonneville cutthroat trout (fish), cherry (fruit), Dutch oven (cooking pot), Indian rice grass (grass), Rocky Mountain elk (animal), Spanish sweet onion (vegetable), sugar beet (historic vegetable)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: pioneer and Western foods, and Mormon cuisine (stereotyped as bland and hearty, though a new generation of Mormons and Utahns are redefining it): funeral potatoes, fry sauce; Jell-O, especially green Jell-O salad

Alison Peek [2012] writes for the Examiner about fry sauce - one part ketchup to two parts mayonnaise - saying it goes well not just with fries but beer battered onion rings (she also gives you a recipe for that).

She doesn't have a recipe for fry sauce, but it doesn't matter because I just gave it to you.

The Recipe: Fry Sauce

For fry sauce, gather ketchup and mayo.  After both went bad in the fridge during June's derecho, I had to replenish my supply of both.  I went HFCS-free with the generic ketchup from Harris Teeter and the low fat version of Duke's Mayonnaise.

Put one part ketchup in a bowl, any bowl at all.

Mix it with two parts of mayonnaise (I didn't read the article close enough, and actually did one part mayo instead of two, but oh well.  It was just more ketchup-y than most)

Mix the two.

Well that was difficult.  It really is a simple condiment that you can whip up in a flash.  Next time I will have to do it right, one part ketchup to two parts mayo.  It is surprisingly tasty.  Now to make some onion rings to go with this.

- - - - -

We're at the point in this series where we are visiting entire regions for the last time.  Our Texas posts really were our last visit to the Deep South, as well as the Southwest.  Utah, technically, is Southwest, though nothing I made from it qualifies as such.  But now it is time to head back to the east coast, as we leave the Beehive State for the land of Ben & Jerry's, cheddar cheese and maple syrup.  This is our final foray into New England and the Northeast: on to Vermont.

Sources:

Badger Jensen, Julie.  The Essential Mormon Cookbook: Green Jell-O, Funeral Potatoes, and Other Secret Combinations.  Deseret Book Company: Salt Lake City, UT, 2004.

GloZell.  "I am Honorary Mormon in Utah ... Green Jello and Funeral Potato".  Video posted November 4, 2011.

Lindeman, Scarlett.  "Jell-O Love: A Guide to Mormon Cuisine".  The Atlantic Monthly, published March 24, 2010.

Malouf, Mary Brown.  "In Defense: Utah Food".  Salt Lake Magazine, posted June 18, 2012.

Malouf, Mary Brown.  "In Defense: Funeral Potatoes".  Salt Lake Magazine, posted June 18, 2012.

Moskin, Julia.  "Not Just for Sundays After Church: A New Generation Redefines Mormon Cuisine".  The New York Times, published January 24, 2012.

Peek, Alison.  "Utah comfort snack food: Onion rings and fry sauce" Examiner.com, posted February 5, 2012.

Tiffany (blogger).  "Utah's Famous Green Jello Recipe".  Raindrops on Roses, posted March 13, 2010.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Utah" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Utah".

Snacking State-by-State: Utah II - There's always room for S-A-L-A-D

By most estimates, Utah is Jell-O country.  More Jell-O is eaten in the Beehive State than in any other state in the country.  Utah even went so far as to make Bill Cosby an honorary Utahn [Lindeman 2010].  They love Jell-O.

Official Name: State of Utah
State Nickname: The Beehive State
Admission to the US: January 4, 1896 (#45)
Capital: Salt Lake City (largest)
Other Important Cities: Provo (3rd largest), Orem (5th largest), Ogden (7th largest)
Region: West, Southwest; Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Idaho (north), Wyoming (northeast), Colorado (east), New Mexico (southeast), Arizona (south), Nevada (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Beehive (emblem - for the honey inside it). Bonneville cutthroat trout (fish), cherry (fruit), Dutch oven (cooking pot), Indian rice grass (grass), Rocky Mountain elk (animal), Spanish sweet onion (vegetable), sugar beet (historic vegetable)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: pioneer and Western foods, and Mormon cuisine (stereotyped as bland and hearty, though a new generation of Mormons and Utahns are redefining it): funeral potatoes, fry sauce; Jell-O, especially green Jell-O salad

Food writer Scarlett Lindeman [2010] told The Atlantic Magazine that when her family moved to Utah when she was a teenager, she had no idea that Utah just can't get enough of that jiggly stuff.

When my family relocated to Utah from New Brunswick, New Jersey, in the summer of 1998, we were unaware of the local gelatin affinity. Shiny yellow and blue Jell-O salads sat in our fridge vibrating their friendly "welcome to the neighborhood." We discovered the strange, almost otherworldly suspensions of savory items—shredded carrots, peas, and cubed ham—in gifts of Jell-O molds. And I, just shy of my thirteenth birthday, entered a new semester of junior high and a new culinary terrain. [Lindeman 2010]

This is what Americans in the mid-20th century cheekishly referred to as "salad".  I still have no idea how this even qualifies as salad.

Just as there are many recipes for funeral potatoes (showcased in the previous Utah post), there are certainly hundreds of Jell-O recipes.  But apparently there is one traditional famous green Jell-O dessert recipe, involving cream, pineapple and lemon juice.  What I am assuming is the "traditional", "famous" recipe comes to us from The Essential Mormon Cookbook by Julie Badger Jensen [2004], which is posted on the Raindrops on Roses blog [Tiffany 2010].  I halved the recipe, since Jell-O is not nearly as popular in my home as it is in Utah.

The Recipe: The Official Green Jell-O Recipe

For the official green Jell-O recipe you need:

* lime Jell-O (this stuff is getting more expensive than I thought, with one box at $1.50.  Maybe I should have gone generic?)
* water (right from the tap)
* sugar (had it)
* crushed pineapple with juice (yes, I accidentally bought chunked instead.  I made do)
* lemon juice (had it)
* heavy whipping cream (a pint goes for about $2.50 at Harris Teeter)

First, boil the water.  Wow, this is hard.

Mix the lime Jell-O and the sugar.

Add the hot water to the bowl and stir.

Stir in lemon juice.

And then add the pineapple, with juice.  Put in the refrigerator until it gets a little syrupy.

Meanwhile, beat the whipping cream.  Remember: it will beat fastest when the cream and the bowl are both cold.  Whip until stiff peaks form.

Fold the whipped cream into the Jell-O.

Refrigerate until solid, at least a few hours.

Cut and serve!

This is perhaps the sweetest Jell-O dessert I have eaten in ages.  It is tasty, I will give it that, but eat a few squares of this and your teeth will really be in pain.  No, the pineapple does not make it "healthy".  In all, tasty but very sweet.

Sources:

Badger Jensen, Julie.  The Essential Mormon Cookbook: Green Jell-O, Funeral Potatoes, and Other Secret Combinations.  Deseret Book Company: Salt Lake City, UT, 2004.

GloZell.  "I am Honorary Mormon in Utah ... Green Jello and Funeral Potato".  Video posted November 4, 2011.

Lindeman, Scarlett.  "Jell-O Love: A Guide to Mormon Cuisine".  The Atlantic Monthly, published March 24, 2010.

Malouf, Mary Brown.  "In Defense: Utah Food".  Salt Lake Magazine, posted June 18, 2012.

Malouf, Mary Brown.  "In Defense: Funeral Potatoes".  Salt Lake Magazine, posted June 18, 2012.

Moskin, Julia.  "Not Just for Sundays After Church: A New Generation Redefines Mormon Cuisine".  The New York Times, published January 24, 2012.

Peek, Alison.  "Utah comfort snack food: Onion rings and fry sauce" Examiner.com, posted February 5, 2012.

Tiffany (blogger).  "Utah's Famous Green Jello Recipe".  Raindrops on Roses, posted March 13, 2010.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Utah" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Utah".

Snacking State-by-State: Utah I - I'll just DIE if I don't get this recipe!

Like most Americans, I really had no idea what Utah's cuisine was like.  A little investigating cleared that up.  It's very hearty.

Official Name: State of Utah
State Nickname: The Beehive State
Admission to the US: January 4, 1896 (#45)
Capital: Salt Lake City (largest)
Other Important Cities: Provo (3rd largest), Orem (5th largest), Ogden (7th largest)
Region: West, Southwest; Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Idaho (north), Wyoming (northeast), Colorado (east), New Mexico (southeast), Arizona (south), Nevada (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Beehive (emblem - for the honey inside it). Bonneville cutthroat trout (fish), cherry (fruit), Dutch oven (cooking pot), Indian rice grass (grass), Rocky Mountain elk (animal), Spanish sweet onion (vegetable), sugar beet (historic vegetable)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: pioneer and Western foods, and Mormon cuisine (stereotyped as bland and hearty, though a new generation of Mormons and Utahns are redefining it): funeral potatoes, fry sauce; Jell-O, especially green Jell-O salad

Apparently, Utah cuisine - essentially Mormon cuisine - has a reputation for being, well, simple.  Simple and hearty.  And dull.  Note that today, Utahns, and Mormons in particular, are trying to retake their state cuisine and make it exciting.  The New York Times [Moskin 2012] reported recently that a new generation of Mormons are redefining Latter Day eating.

Food blogging and online recipe sharing are now thriving among these young mothers. “I didn’t know what to do with myself” as a stay-at-home mother, [Food blogger Kate] Jones said. She embraced academic work as a student at Brigham Young University in Provo, and planned to be a writer or teacher before her children were born. Writing about and photographing food for the blog “brought me back to who I was before,” she said.

Many Mormon women are accomplished and enthusiastic bakers — a logical development, because “sugar is the only vice we’re allowed to have,” [fellow food blogger Rachael] Hutchings said. [Moskin 2012]

That said, some in Utah are still quite defensive about the traditional cuisine as it is.  For example, take Mary Brown Malouf [2012], writing for Salt Lake Magazine.  Far from redefining Mormon cuisine, she sticks up for it - not as it is, but as it could be.

Utah's food is regular fodder for snobby foodies like myself. A survivalist frontier mentality—including reliance on foods that keep well—together with Utah’s famously large families means that convenience foods are popular recipe ingredients and that thrift often comes before flavor, both bad indicators for fine food. 

But just as every Thanksgiving feast has one beloved dish that’s utterly traditional to the family but slightly gross to outsiders, every culture’s cuisine has its questionable side. In Texas, Velveeta melted with Ro-Tel is part of the canon. In the Upper Midwest, people don’t blink at Watergate salad. The list goes on: Pork rinds. Peanuts in Coca-Cola. Waldorf salad. 

So I say: Embrace Utah food, instead of eschewing it. By embracing it, you’ll improve it. [Malouf 2012]

One of the first recipes she showcases is the Utah-famous casserole known, morbidly, as funeral potatoes.  Yes, funeral potatoes.  Of course, this dish is brought to a grieving family in the event of a funeral, but it is prepared and brought to so many potlucks and covered dish events where nobody so much as has the sniffles, much less is dying.  It even led comedienne and singer Glozell to rave about them during one visit:

There are many family recipes for funeral potatoes - best described as a combination of hash browned potatoes, cheese and some sort of cream soup, covered in something crunchy.  Malouf says that this is "the most famous and maligned Utah recipe besides Jell-O salad, but it’s a cherished part of many Mormon family menus" [2012].  She may take umbrage to my description, but it isn't a put down, really (and you saw the YouTube video!).  Seriously, it isn't the healthiest thing to eat, but if I had made sure only to make healthy stuff then I probably would have written about three recipes over the last year.

Malouf presents two of the thousands of variations on funeral potatoes in her article.  One, by Ogden housewife Tammy Hanchett, was passed down from her grandmother.  It features crushed corn flakes on top, but could never quite figure out exactly what went into it, since she threw a handful of this or that in as she felt the mood.  The other recipe comes to us from SLC resident Jessica Yestas, winner of the Utah's Own Best Funeral Potatoes Contest (presumably for 2012? 2011?).  Yestas zhuzh's hers up with panko bread crumbs on the top and sautéed onion inside.  I tried to do a combination of Mss. Hanchett's and Yestas' recipe, but ended up mostly just adding onions to Hanchett's recipe, which I halved.  Both recipes can be found in Malouf's article [2012].

The Recipe: Funeral Potatoes

For Hanchett's funeral potatoes, with a little added from Yestas' recipe, you will need:

* hash browns (the thinly sliced ones.  It was easiest to buy the 32 oz frozen bag for about $4)
* Monterey Jack and cheddar cheese (both recipes called for a mixture of these two cheeses.  Shredded Mexican blend of Monterey Jack and cheddar cheese went for about $3)
* milk (had this)
* sour cream (I went for light sour cream this time, for about $2)
* cream of chicken soup (one can for $1)
* butter (had a stick)
* onion (one was less than 50¢) 
* corn flakes (no I didn't have any, so I bought a box of generic ones for about $3.50.  I wanted to add panko bread crumbs, but assuming I had them I didn't buy any extra.  At least I had the corn flakes)

Chop and sauté your onion until translucent in a little bit of the butter.

Melt the rest of the butter and pour into a separate bowl.

To the butter, add your cream of chicken soup...

Your sour cream...

Your milk...

Your cheese...

Your hash browns...

And of course your onions.

Spread the potato mixture into a baking dish.

To prepare your corn flakes, pour them into a ziploc bag.

Crush the corn flakes in the bag.

Spread the corn flake crumbs over the top of the dish.

And bake in a 350° oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

Mmmm...

I only wish I had left it in a little bit longer, which could have made the potatoes a little crispier.  This is best eaten fresh out of the oven, because upon reheating the corn flakes, of course, don't stay crunchy.  But I must admit, it is a tasty, hearty casserole.  It's one that won't kill you - unless you just eat this and nothing else to excess.  But anything will do that.

Sources:

Badger Jensen, Julie.  The Essential Mormon Cookbook: Green Jell-O, Funeral Potatoes, and Other Secret Combinations.  Deseret Book Company: Salt Lake City, UT, 2004.

GloZell.  "I am Honorary Mormon in Utah ... Green Jello and Funeral Potato".  Video posted November 4, 2011.

Lindeman, Scarlett.  "Jell-O Love: A Guide to Mormon Cuisine".  The Atlantic Monthly, published March 24, 2010.

Malouf, Mary Brown.  "In Defense: Utah Food".  Salt Lake Magazine, posted June 18, 2012.

Malouf, Mary Brown.  "In Defense: Funeral Potatoes".  Salt Lake Magazine, posted June 18, 2012.

Moskin, Julia.  "Not Just for Sundays After Church: A New Generation Redefines Mormon Cuisine".  The New York Times, published January 24, 2012.

Peek, Alison.  "Utah comfort snack food: Onion rings and fry sauce" Examiner.com, posted February 5, 2012.

Tiffany (blogger).  "Utah's Famous Green Jello Recipe".  Raindrops on Roses, posted March 13, 2010.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Utah" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Utah".