Green Bean Casserole

 

GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE

I have an admission to make. I have only been aware of the dish called Green Bean Casserole for the past ten years. Only ten years. A former co-worker had informed me about the dish, claiming her mother had learned about it from a magazine for women. Because of this, I have always assumed that Green Bean Casserole was a dish first created around the late 20th century or early 21st century. I was wrong.

Green Bean Casserole is an American baked dish that consists of green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and french fried onions. Very simple. Chef and inventor Dorcas Reilly had created the dish, while working in the home economics department at Campbell Soup Company in 1955. Ms. Reilly created the dish for a feature article for the Associated Press. Campbell Soup required a quick and easy dish using ingredients that include one of their soups for most U.S. households. Ms. Reilly or Campbell Soup Company originally called the dish, "Green Bean Bake" when the latter began printing the recipe on their soup cans. Initially the dish did not test well within the company. However, due to Reilly's persistence, "Green Bean Bake" or Green Bean Casserole eventually earned a reputation for being "the ultimate comfort food".

The origin of the Green Bean Casserole truly began with the Campbell Soup Company's creation of their Creamed Mushroom Soup in 1934. When Ms. Reilly created the dish twenty-one years later, her ingredients included the soup, green beans, milk, soy sauce, ground black pepper and French-fried onions. She mixed the beans, soup, milk, and seasonings together, with a portion of the onions, and baked the mixture. Then she topped the dish with more French-fried onions and baked it for a few more minutes. Over the years, similar recipes have "updated" or "upgraded" the original recipe to use fresh green beans, homemade cream sauce, and fresh mushrooms, as the convenience-food based recipes of the 1950s and 1960s have become less fashionable.

The Campbell Soup Company had originally marketed the casserole as an everyday side dish. But it became popular for Thanksgiving dinners during the 1960s, after Campbell's placed the recipe on the Cream of Mushroom Soup cans' labels. The recipe popularized the combination of the soup with green beans and Campbell's Soup now estimates that 40 percent of the Cream of Mushroom soup sold in the United States goes into making Green Bean Casserole. Culinary historian Laura Shapiro called the recipe's use of the crunchy fried onion topping that gave the side dish a bit of "glamor", a "touch of genius". "Food & Wine" magazine called it "iconic". "Good Housekeeping" had declared that "few dishes are 'iconic'" as the Green Bean Casserole. In November 2002, Ms. Reilly, donated the original recipe card to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, while representing Campbell's Soup. A meal featuring the dish followed the donation.

Below is a recipe for the Green Bean Casserole from the Campbell Soup Company website:


Green Bean Casserole

Ingredients:

*1 can (10 1/2 ounces) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup or 98% Fat Free Cream of Mushroom Soup or Condensed Unsalted Cream of Mushroom Soup
*1/2 cup milk
*1 teaspoon soy sauce
*4 cups cooked cut green beans
*1 1/3 cups French's® French Fried Onions (amount divided in recipe steps below)


Preparation:

Step 1 - Heat the oven to 350°F. Stir the soup, milk, soy sauce, beans and 2/3 cup onions in a 1 1/2-quart casserole. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

Step 2 - Bake for 25 minutes or until hot. Stir the bean mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining 2/3 cup of onions.

Step 3 - Bake for another 5 minutes or until the onions are golden brown.