Arlie Caudill

Frugal Appalachian kitchen, food-preserving and household tricks

Inferred from titles, descriptions and the about text: US home cooks and budget-minded households, including older adults cooking for one or two (one title names seniors living alone), who want cheap, old-fashioned ways to cook, store food and cut grocery bills.

• Realistic avatar
• A photorealistic elderly man with a deeply lined face and white stubble, wearing a brown cap, blue chambray work shirt and olive suspenders, framed from the chest up in a farmhouse kitchen, a greenhouse, outdoors or against a plain wall, usually holding the item the video is about.

About 25 min of first-person talk on one household trick: a kitchen-problem hook, his name, age and Letcher County roots, the cost, what the method will not do, a Mamaw story, the steps, then a comment question and next-video teaser. Descriptions open with an e-book link.

• Keeping food fresh: bananas, cilantro, ginger, freezer
• Budget meal plans and grocery savings
• Old-time cooking: skillet bread, tender meat, cast iron
• Preserving without electricity: fermenting, dried meat
• Self-reliance skills: water filter, growing tobacco
• Cheap kitchen hacks: paper towels, picking a sweet pineapple

• Stop [Doing X]! This Appalachian Trick [Result]
• [Food] [Result] with This Forgotten Appalachian Trick
• [N] Appalachian [Topic] Hacks That Will Change Your Life
• [N] Meals for $[N]? (Extreme Appalachia Grocery Budget Tips)
• This $[N] Appalachian Meal Plan Feeds You for the Week

The same elderly man in a brown cap, blue shirt and olive suspenders beside one close-up item (jar, pineapple, sweet potatoes, cigar); 5 of 10 add a bold caption in white or yellow capitals (2 INGREDIENTS, 24¢ PER MEAL) and 4 an arrow or circle on the key detail.

• One breakout: the banana-storage video has 26,247 views, about 16 times the next (1,665); the other 19 videos have 5 to 1,665 views.
• One title tag: all 20 titles contain 'Appalachian' or 'Appalachia', 12 of 20 add Trick, Hack or Secret, and 5 open with Stop or Never.
• Money-saving promises: the two budget meal-plan videos ($30 and $40 budgets) are the 2nd and 3rd most viewed, with 1,665 and 1,485 views.
• Grandparent-lineage persona: 16 of 20 description excerpts cite his Mamaw or Papaw and 13 of 20 the Letcher County upbringing.
• Every description excerpt (20 of 20) opens with a store link for a $39.95, 269-page e-book, giving each video the same path to a paid product.