Hey y'all, it's Jerome.

To start this episode, I'm beginning in a not-so-stranged, incredible, and wondrous place.

My kitchen.

The sound you're hearing is me baking something in hopes of understanding the place behind this episode.

The Morris Press Cookbook Store in Kearney, Nebraska, about a two and a half hour

drive west of Omaha. The store is the front-facing business of this family-run publisher

that specializes in community cookbooks. Think of it like the Google of every family's box of

recipes, a collection, a pantry

favorites, secret recipes, and cooking tips all in one place.

So to really find out what that means, I asked them to send me a recipe, one from my hometown

of San Antonio.

And we settled on something that sounded festive, a Fiesta cake, a flowerless baked good with a base of pinto

beans. Now, in San Antonio, fiesta is huge. It's an 11-day citywide explosion of culture.

But in all my years there, I've never seen this on a menu or a picnic table.

But I'm hoping to learn that this alleged hometown staple is just a well-kept secret.

Okay, so now let me do the official opening.

Three, two, one.

I'm Jerome Campbell, and this is Atlas Obscura,

a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

In this episode, we're learning about the Morris Press Cookbook Store,

one of the largest archives of home style recipes.

And I'll be trying one out.

...