Stephanie and Christine met in 1997 in the choir room of the music department at the University of Oklahoma. Both vocal music majors, they became fast friends. Over the next 10 years and through twists and turns of life, they stayed in touch and remained friends until they found themselves back in Norman, Oklahoma in 2007, picking up their friendship right where they left off.
Both share a love for good food and cooking, as well as vintage and retro recipes. One summer afternoon Stephanie was helping Christine organize her extensive collection of cookbooks including quite a few “church lady” cookbooks. After thumbing through the spiral-bound books representing submissions from ladies of churches across the country, laughing at the names and ingredients of many of the recipes, it became clear they needed to make some of these wacky recipes.
It started with something called “Hot Dog Hamburgers” which turned out to just be everything you would put on a hotdog but diced up, stuffed in a hot dog bun, wrapped in foil, and then warmed in the oven. There wasn’t anything hamburger-y about it but the name and deconstructed hot dog cracked them up. They just had to make it so they decided to record the cooking process along with their reaction to eating it and share it with friends.
It didn’t take long to discover that making videos of retro and vintage recipes was their jam. Recipe Archaeology on YouTube was born.
So, what is Recipe Archaeology?
The heart of Recipe Archaeology is having fun. Stephanie and Christine love pouring over old cookbooks and wondering “what in the world were they thinking?” When it comes to old recipes, the weirder the recipe the better. They want to make all of the strange recipes from the 20th century, taste them, and let their fans know what it’s really like. Because, let’s be honest, you don’t want to actually make and eat Jellied Chicken Salad, right? But you’re dying to know what it really tastes like.