“I have to write an 800-word article about casseroles,” I tell my
sister. “How the fuck am I supposed to write 800 words about
casseroles?” My sister, who has a lavish garden, raises chickens for
the fresh eggs, and doesn’t let her kid touch refined sugar, hesitates.
“I fed my family a casserole the other day,” she finally says.
“Macaroni, a can of cream of mushroom soup, and Velveeta.”
My mom chimes in. “I used to feed you chili casserole all the time.
Remember, I’d put a layer of Hormel with cornbread on top?”
Do I ever. Everyone remembers casserole. One friend’s mom
specialized in “Hamburger Pie,” a casserole which he remembers in
detail, and with considerable affection. Another’s made something
called the “Cheesy Corny Eggy Thing,” which he recollects in equal
detail, though with significantly less affection (it involved a can of
creamed corn and Egg Beaters).
Whatever Mom called it, the building blocks were the same: green
beans and fried onions. Ground beef. Condensed soups. Bread crumbs.
While the term itself comes from the French word for saucepan, and
refers to “a dish in which food may be baked and served” (according to
Webster’s), in our cultural parlance the term has come to signify more
than a mere piece of cookware: It evokes childhood, family picnics, and
working moms who are too tired at the end of the day to do more than
dump a can of cream of mushroom soup on some tater tots and call it
good. Various hastily consulted online sources indicate that, while the
dish has been around forever, it became widely popular during the Great
Depression as a way of stretching leftovers and creating a warm,
filling meal out of relatively inexpensive ingredients, like canned
soups and cheap cuts of meat.
Try something next time you’re online: Take a break from
compulsively updating your Facebook status, and spend a few minutes
browsing casserole recipes. You’ll find an impressive catalogue of
dishes that sound cheap, easy, and often pretty good, in a gut bomb-y
sort of way. Crescent Roll Casserole. Taco Casserole. Extra Creamy
Tater Tot Casserole. Cowboy Casserole. Grits Casserole. The casserole
is alive and well, both in the hearts and cookbooks of moms everywhere,
and in the irony-drenched corners of Brooklyn, where hipsters
congregate each year for the Annual Casserole Party (organized by a
woman who blogs at
casserolecrazy.com).
So… should the non-moms among us reacquaint ourselves with the
casseroles of yore, in a new era of higher food prices and shrinking
budgets, with an eye toward both penny-pinching and retro-kitsch
hipster cred?
Nope.
Return to the casseroles of our youth? Sure, and let’s all just take
a nice gas tax holiday, while we’re at it. Most casserole recipes rely
on the exact foods we shouldn’t be eating—weird,
over-processed canned foods and cheap, factory-produced meat (you
don’t waste quality meat by covering it in enchilada sauce and crumbled
taco shells and throwing it in the oven for an hour). They’re calorie
dense, sure: A hash-brown casserole covered in cheese is cheaper and
more filling than, say, fresh fruits or vegetables. But while I in no
way dispute the culinary merits of any food involving the phrase
“covered in cheese,” I do have high hopes of making it to old age with
three or fewer chins, even on a writer’s salary. The relationship
between poverty and obesity is depressing enough without the local
alternative weekly getting all “let’s make a 49-cent nacho casserole”
about it.
Nor can I bring myself to suggest that we all embrace casserole-chic
and start arguing about whether the best fried onions are made by
French’s or Durkee. While I appreciate irony, and I appreciate food, I
cannot and will not support ironic food. (It’s one thing to go all
so-not-cool-it’s-cool about, say, footwear—but you don’t have to
put those Keds inside of you.)
Does this mean we should forsake the casserole altogether? Abandon
the practicality and affordability of an easy dish you can quickly
assemble and throw in the oven and ignore for half an hour, thus buying
yourself a few precious minutes to put your feet up and have a cocktail
because dammit, it’s been a long day at work and Mommy needs a
drink?
Hell no. Remember: A casserole ain’t nothing but a serving dish you
can put in the oven. There’s no need to rehash the Egg Beaters-laden
mistakes of the past, and we’re not going to get anywhere by adhering
to the consumption patterns of the past—a truism that holds even
when it comes to nostalgic-infused dishes like the lowly casserole.
Step one: Buy a casserole dish. Go to the Goodwill, there’s plenty;
or ask your grandma, I guarantee she’s got a few extras. Step two: Look
around your kitchen. Got half an onion waiting to get used, and some
leftover rice or pasta from lunch? Maybe some tofu that’s been sitting
in the fridge a few days too long, zucchini from an
over-
enthusiastic garden, or leftover chicken from a potluck?
Throw together a simple béchamel sauce from flour, milk, and
butter, maybe some cheese if you’re feeling it, or spice up some canned
tomato sauce with some rosemary you stole from the neighbors. Those
stale bread heels you’ve been avoiding eating? Voila, breadcrumbs. Step
three, put it all in the oven and see what happens. Step four, give it
a ridiculous name, and make it over and over so that one day when you
have kids you’ll be able to cook it up while juggling six screaming
babies and a migraine like you wouldn’t believe.