Nut Dope – Eleanor C Sayre

aka the Sayre family Chex Mix

Ingredients

1/4c Lea & Perrins Worchestershire Sauce, expressed as 3 overflowing tablespoons.
1.5t garlic powder, expressed as 1 heaped teaspoon.
1T Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, expressed as 2 heaped teaspoons.
3 sticks butter.

Preheat the oven to 275F.
In a large metal bowl that will both hold all the nut dope and fit in the oven, mix the dry goods.
On the stove, slowly melt the butter and the rest of the sauce ingredients together until hot and bubbly. Give it a good stir.
Pour roughly half of the sauce onto the dry goods in a big spiral pattern, then gently stir dry goods (fluffing up from the bottom) to mix.
Repeat with the other half of the sauce.
Bake for one hour, stirring / fluffing every 15 minutes.
When it comes out of the oven, give it a final stir
Allow to rest 15 mins (or more) before serving.

Store in a converted popcorn tin for up to 3 weeks.

This recipe is very forgiving of different box sizes of cereal. Aim for a total weight of cereal around 30-40oz, roughly 2:1::rice:wheat.
Aim for 14-18oz (about a pound) of pretzel sticks, the skinny kind. It’s ok to include the salt fragments in the bottom of the bag, or not as you decide. I prefer not.
Sue notes that if you’re using nuts, you should aim for a mix of less than 50% peanuts. Eleanor has never made this with nuts, but having tasted Sue’s nutted version, suggests you might want to look for dry roast nuts because Sue’s is hella oily.
Measures of flavorings are likewise forgiving, so find a measuring method that works for you and be consistent about it.
Don’t reduce the butter, as it is the vehicle by which the flavor is spread.

This is called “nut dope” even though it is traditionally made without nuts.
Given the ingredients in the recipe, it’s highly unlikely that this “tradition” predates the childhood of baby boomers.
Sue Sayre reports that she received this recipe (possibly from her MIL, Lois Sayre?) with a blend of margarine and butter, but that she personally has only ever used butter.
Sue’s recipe uses 1T garlic SALT instead of half as much garlic POWDER. Eleanor Sayre switched to garlic powder circa 2015 and it just tastes better. Seriously, 1950s housewives: why so much salt.
Eleanor Sayre suspects that the recipe, as originally written, did not overflow / heap the measures of flavor in the sauce, but that recipe drift over time has increased their measure. I’ve upconverted them in this recipe with a note as to what Sue expressed them as circa 2006.
Traditionally, Sue makes nut dope only in the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Matt feels that it is a holiday treat and Eleanor has no particular feels about timing, so Eleanor usually makes it starting in October when Matt’s cravings develop. Cravings usually subside by mid-January.
Family lore suggests that making nut dope is exclusively the domain of women. Eleanor is unsure of where this sexist shit originated. Negotiated peace in her household is that while women (== Eleanor) make the nut dope, men (== Matthew) are exclusively responsible for the nut dope storage tin: procurement, cleaning, storage, etc.