LOS ANGELES -- Frank DeCaro, the author of "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook," is contemplating a bite of Greer Garson's capirotada.
Dressed in a red-and-white checked shirt and a red apron with one red and one black oven mitt by his side, the former "Daily Show" film critic and Sirius Radio talk show host looks somewhat befuddled. He pushes his thick, black-rimmed glasses up on his nose and chews slowly.
The dish by the Oscar-winning star of the 1942 film "Mrs. Miniver" is a strangely archaic mix of white bread, Colby cheese, raisins and sugar-cinnamon syrup. DeCaro baked it alongside a tray of Katharine Hepburn's brownies until it puffed into a mass of gooey cheese and gloppy bread that is reminding him of one of his favorite TV-show episodes.
"I got to the center part where the white bread has become that thing that attacks Spock in the middle of 'Star Trek,' " he said. "It wasn't an alien life form, it was Greer Garson's capirotada."
But culinary perfection is not the point of DeCaro's recent book, which features more than 145 recipes from as many deceased celebrities. Helping a new generation of pop-culture fans rediscover them and their work is his goal.
DeCaro spent more than 15 years collecting and cataloging these recipes. He scoured flea markets, bookstores and yard sales and uncovered them in obscure places like microwave instruction manuals, ladies' club pamphlets and grocery store fliers. It's tough to discern whether the recipes were actually made by the stars themselves or simply manufactured by their publicists.
The result includes Humphrey Bogart's coconut Spanish cream; Rock Hudson's cannoli; Charlton Heston's cheese tuna puff; Johnny Cash's pan-fried okra; Elizabeth Taylor's chicken with avocado and mushrooms; Anthony Perkins' tuna salad; Buddy Hackett's Chinese chili; Billy De Wolfe's codfish balls; and Eartha Kitt's chicken wings.
"The only thing irreverent about this book is the title," DeCaro said. "It's 150 love letters, is what it is. I'm crazy about these celebrities."
Midcentury comfort food
Each recipe is accompanied by a brief, cleverly written biography and a description of what distinguishes the particular featured dish. "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook" combines America's gustatory evolution from canned goods and frozen meat to organic, sustainable fare with our fascination with celluloid celebrity.
"So maybe she wasn't mother of the year, but Joan Crawford was responsible for some of the most indelible performances ever put on film," reads the entry for Joan Crawford's poached salmon, which calls for an astounding two cups of mayonnaise for its dressing.
In a similar vein, there's the caloric majesty of Harriet Nelson's favorite chicken. It calls for one can of cream of chicken soup, one can of cream of mushroom soup and one can of cream of celery soup. "When I initially tried the dish, my first thought was, 'This should come with a defibrillator,' " DeCaro mused. "But when the temperature dips it's incredibly homey and comforting. I feel like it's a style of cooking that's ripe for re-evaluation, not necessarily revival, but re-evaluation."
All interests in one
The idea for "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook" was inspired by a dead celebrity fete he attended as an undergraduate at Northwestern University. He went dressed as 1970s Grape-Nuts spokesman Euell Gibbons.
"The cookbook is really a compendium of all of my interests. My interest in pop culture, my love of food, my adoration of old movies, my nostalgia and my desire to be current," he explains. "You really should know on whose shoulders our current entertainers are standing."
DeCaro has tested only about 50 of the recipes thus far, but has plans to plow through the whole book. Most of his research up to this point was spent verifying the film-and-television trivia in the book.
