Lola’s Delicious Almond Crab Casserole

From the Trout Capital of the World. No, really.

I’m just going to take the quotation marks around delicious out of the name. (I think they come off as passive-aggressive and I have no reason to think that was the intent.)

With apologies to Lola, there are a lot of people claiming a piece of the ownership of this recipe. There’s a 1976 edition of The Virgin Islands Daily News that advertises it as a recipe for local seafood while at the same time confessing, “we have even sunk so low as to use tuna and the memory of crab.”

A couple of sources attribute an embellished version to Edwin Lambin of Delaware who, they say, tied for fourth place in the Junior Division of the Crab Cooking Contest that took place at the 1972 Hard Crab Derby in Crisfield, Maryland, the self-proclaimed “Crab Capital of the World.”

But the earliest version of this recipe that I can find is in a pay-per-view source, from the October 29, 1965 edition of the Twin Falls (Idaho) Times News:

Magic Valley Favorites Mrs. Alva Parrott 421 Eighth Ave. N., Buhl Almond Crab Casserole 1 cup crab meat 1 cup cleaned cooked shrimp 2 cans mushroom soup 1 cup finely sliced celery 1/4 cup minced onion 1 can crisp fried noodles, 3 ounces 1 package, 2 ounces, shaved almond Combine crab, shrimp, undiluted soup, celery, onion, and noodles. Turn into a greased casserole. Sprinkle top with almonds. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Serve warm with salad. [The Times-News will pay $5 each week for the best recipe submitted for Magic Valley Favorites. If you have a favorite recipe, just mail it to the Recipe Department, Women’s Page editor. The recipe becomes the property of the Times-News and cannot be returned.] * * * Program Given FILER– Mrs. W.E. Wood presented a program on Brazil to the Women’s Mission Society of the United Missionary Church. The group is studying mission fields in Latin America.

Buhl, Idaho, as it happens, is the self-proclaimed “Trout Capital of the World.” Hatcheries in and around Buhl produce most of the rainbow trout sold in the United States, and nearby Clear Springs Foods is the world’s largest processor of rainbow trout.

From the box of F.J. from Sun City, Arizona. Some cards suggest a family history in Missouri.

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