Green Bean Casserole

Doesn't look like much but it was really good

I used to be a green bean hater but I have been slowly coming around to like them, if I had only had this casserole sooner! Its no wonder that this has become a classic dish but usually made from the recipe on the back of a soup can. Although the soup can version is pretty good the from scratch version is way better.  But speaking of the soup can version this leads nicely into green bean casserole history.

In Good Eats 3: The Later Years Alton Brown brings up an interesting point. American cuisine was only really coming into its own in the past century or so while most of cuisines have existed for many hundreds of years. At the turn of the 20th century home cooks began to look for connivence products made possible by the industrial revolution. In 1897 Dr. John T. Dorrance was working for the Campbell Preserve Company when he discovered a way to condense soups. 32 oz of soup in a 10 oz can, sounded like a winning idea. It was such a hit that the Campbell Preserve Company became just Campbell's Soup. They began to publish recipes that would incorporate the condensed soups and many classic dishes followed. It was not until 1955 that Dorcas Reilly of Campbell's Soup first concocted the green bean casserole (she was inducted into the inventors Hall of Fame in 2002 for the green bean casserole).

Even without the soup cans this casserole is still really easy to make. Cook the green beans as you would have to even for the soup can version and then it is as simple as sauteing some mushrooms and adding stock and cream. The onions on top are just coated in flour and breadcrumbs and baked for about 20 minutes.


Green Bean Cassarole