As the leaves turn colors and cooler temperatures blow in, I find myself craving warm comfort food at the end of a busy day. Using Grandma’s old recipes, I search for inspiration to consume the abundance from our farm CSA bounty.  

Enter the humble casserole.

The casserole, a creamy, gooey, one dish meal that’s baked until bubbly is the ultimate comfort food.  Economically pulled together with Sunday’s leftover roasted chicken and cans of Campbell’s cream of chicken soup, casseroles were a staple in our youth.  An all-in-one dish, it also a cleverly hid vegetables, often fooling the more finicky child.

Reaching the height of popularity in the 1950’s, the word casserole was originally introduced into our culinary vocabulary by way of France.  Casserole, french for pan or as Webster describes: a dish of glass or earthenware, with a lid, in which food is baked and sometimes served.

Remove the lid and you have what we remember fondly in Minnesota as the hotdish.  

History of the casserole: everything old is new again

Casseroles are by no means a mid-century invention.   A common pot where food was cooked and then shared, artifacts of these vessels date back to ancient times.  One could argue that the Spanish paella or Italian lasagna would fit into the broad definition of a casserole. 

19th Century America embraced this way of cooking, as immigrants brought their own version to the New World shores.  Nostalgic but also practical, casseroles introduced economical ways to stretch what little was available.

When it’s Pyrex, you can see it’s clean

However, our modern love of the casserole begins in 1915 and would not exist without a woman named Bessie Littleton, who just wanted a better kitchen experience.  Thanks to Bessie, and her frustration with the breakable stoneware dishes of her time, she asked her physicist husband, Jesse, if he had any suitable alternatives at Corning Glass Works.  The story goes that he brought home a sawed-off bottom of a battery jar made of a special shatter-resistant glass, used by railroads.  

It worked and Pyrex was born.

The serendipitous invention of lightweight glass cookware during the time when in-home ovens were becoming more popular radically altered home cooking in America, eventually helping to elevate the humble casserole, which made its way into Betty Crocker kitchens everywhere.   

Even Madison Avenue capitalized on this growing trend, promising it would “free the housewife from the lengthy drudgery of the kitchen”

As with all trends, the casserole has its share of controversy as suggested in a 1954 newspaper editorial that “the next war between the sexes will be fought over the delicate issue of casseroles…Casseroles symbolize woman’s reluctance to face the fact that yesterday’s roast beef or chicken is still yesterday’s roast beef or chicken, now defrocked, sliced up and hidden like a poor relative under a melange of whipped potatoes, noodles or rice.” Casseroles May Cause Next War Between Sexes, Saul Pett, The Tuscaloosa News, Jun 7, 1954

Casseroles, a people’s food

Ask any person over the age of 30 what type of casserole they had as a child and you’ll receive a wide range of passionate responses.  We either fondly remember or purposely forget memories of tuna noodles with peas; chicken and wild rice; or our beloved Thanksgiving green bean casserole.  

For the younger crowd, you may have to dig into the YouTube archives for a demonstration of this foreign concept.  

Is it a hotdish or a casserole?

Perhaps the once popular casserole began to decline as tater tots were introduced as an acceptable base.  Although it’s more likely that it had a branding problem. Unlike the davenport, the midcentury hotdish started to be seen as a less sophisticated option.  While french cuisine will serve you a casserole de bœuf or huîtres à la casserole with cloth napkins on the side, the hotdish relied on cans of creamed soup and sat next to the jello salad at every church basement potluck. 

But I think there’s still room to bring these back into our collective food vocabulary or at least into my own dinner rotation.  I love tuna and peas, but my family does not. So we went with a rice and broccoli topped with BBQ chicken. The pyrex was licked clean.

How to build your own casserole adventure

Start with a starch, add a little protein and some vegetables if you so choose.  But please, do not forget the sauce – this is the key to the glorious texture.

BBQ Chicken and Rice Casserole

Adapted from Cook Once Eat All Week by Cassy Joy Garcia, NC