Tears and Laughter: Never get too busy to make your own casserole

If you have ever been to a church supper, you’ve had a casserole.

If you have ever started a marriage before a career, you have made casseroles.

If you have kids, and they have ball practice, band practice, dance practice, or community service…you rely on casseroles.

And if you have a can of soup and a potato, or some broth and a handful of noodles, you are well on your way to having all you need to make one. Any scrap of meat will do. And if the scrap is absent, that will do too.

Like most everybody’s grandmother – my Granny was an outstanding Southern cook.

Wait. Let me stop. Like most everybody’s grandmothers – both of mine were outstanding Southern cooks. But time only allowed me the opportunity to cook with one of them. And she cooked Southern because she was raised in Washington County during the Depression.

Anytime any of us asked her anything about the Depression she would say, “We didn’t really know there was a Depression. We heard about it, but we gardened and had chickens and cows. Daddy hunted, and Mama made casseroles.”

It was around about that time and for the same reason that the modern casserole became popular all across America. It stretched food. People used what they had depending upon where they were. They baked them in shallow pans and uncovered baking dishes.

As women were increasingly drawn into the workforce – whether through necessity or desire – casseroles stretched time and money. Taste was secondary, prompting women’s magazines to start featuring casserole articles – teaching home cooks about choosing ingredients that would cook to desired tenderness at the same time.

Full-length cookbooks began being dedicated to the mainstay – with recipes expounding further into textures and blending seasonings.

Somewhere along the way it began to matter what they looked like. Browning became a technique, as did choosing vegetables that added color for the sake of color, and toppings that added another dimension of flavor. A well made casserole has grown far beyond its humble beginnings of a starch, a protein, and a vegetable.

The casserole came to be in order to feed growing families. It stayed popular because it saved time and money.

And it can still do those things today. It is versatile. There are still church dinners and young couples who start marriages before careers. But maybe part of the casserole’s staying power has been that it reminds of us of those who used to be.

Their recipes keep us near the words they used to say – tastes that take us back to conversations had over kitchen tables.

Hopefully peaceful ones.

Either way…never get too busy to cook your own casserole.

You can buy a casserole and call it a home-cooked meal if you want to, but if you do you will be pretending. If you can afford to pay somebody to assemble a casserole for you, just go ahead and your kids order something from the backseat. They will thank you for it, and it won’t disgrace the casserole.

Amanda Walker is a contributor with AL.com The Selma Times Journal, Thomasville Times, West Alabama Watchman, and Alabama Gazette. Contact her at Walkerworld77@msn.com or at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.