Green-bean casserole celebrating its 55th birthday
By Geoff Mulvihill
Associated Press
| |||
 |
|
||
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. — It only seems as if it's been part of Thanksgiving dinner forever.
Green-bean casserole, the super-simple dish that is now as much a Thanksgiving fixture as football and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for many families, turns 50 this year.
The casserole — made with green beans and canned cream of mushroom soup topped with crunchy fried onions — is the most popular recipe ever to come out of the corporate kitchen at Camden, N.J.-based Campbell Soup Co.
Dorcas Reilly, a Campbell Soup kitchen supervisor in 1955, was the driving force behind the dish, company officials say. But Reilly, 79, doesn't remember having a hand in it, saying the dish was among hundreds created (after all, she helped create a tomato-soup meatloaf, a tuna-noodle casserole and Sloppy Joe-like "souperburgers").
For Campbell, the introduction of green-bean casserole was more memorable. The company estimates it sells $20 million worth of cream of mushroom soup each year just to people following Reilly's recipe, or versions of it.
The recipe, created for an Associated Press feature in 1955, is still a fixture on soup-can labels and at this time of year, Campbell television commercials.
It has gained in popularity even as other food-package recipes have foundered. In 1993, 35 percent of grocery shoppers surveyed by the market research company NPD Group said they used recipes on food packages at least once a month. By 2002, the last year for which the data are available, that number was down to 27 percent.
Kate Drohan, 51, of Maple Shade, N.J., said the casserole has been part of her family's Thanksgiving and Christmas meals for more than 30 years.
"We never have leftovers," she said. "It's the one thing that goes that day."
While the basic recipe is simple, others like to tinker with the ingredients.
John Nihoff, a professor of gastronomy at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y, said he has not eaten the dish since he was a kid. If he were to make one now, he'd try a fancier version: "Now, if I had it with heirloom organic beans, I'm sure it would pretty darn good," he said.
Even its creator keeps changing her ways with the casserole.
Reilly always keeps the ingredients for the casserole on hand in her Haddonfield, N.J., home just in case someone asks her to whip one up. This Thanksgiving, her family will get a new version — with carrots.
THE RECIPE
Green-bean casserole recipes appear in countless cookbooks. Here's the one being promoted by Campbell Soup Co., the company whose kitchen created the dish in 1955:
1 10 7/8-oz can of cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. soy sauce
A dash of pepper
4 cups cut green beans
1 1/3 cups of French fried onions
Mix soup, milk, soy, pepper, beans and 2/3-cup onions in 1 1/2-quart casserole.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until hot.
Stir. Sprinkle with remaining onions. Bake five minutes.
Serves six.
LEARN MORE:
