Topic: Green Bean Casserole

Edited 12/30/2013

Green bean casserole is unique in that it is a tradition that was made for the purpose of commercialism, by a company to promote business (namely Campbell's Soup Company; original recipe here).  This creates a lack of place, or a placelessness, for this food.

What do I mean by place?  Usually, when people associate something with a place, this is known among cultural geographers as a "sense of place".  I am using the word "place" in a slightly different way to mean the geographic space (location or region) that a food is commonly associated with.  It does not have to be a place of origin.  As mentioned in a previous post, the original form of Hollandaise sauce probably originated in Holland, but is now associated with France as its culinary place.

The closest thing green bean casserole has to a culinary place is the United States.  But can this qualify as a nationally unifying food?  I'd say if there's any food I can think of that does, this would be it.  Made by a corporation, all across the U.S. and within it, and enjoyed on a national holiday by millions, this is more of a national food than the apple pie, burger (both German in origin), or turkey (raised long before the nation was founded, I might go into it on a separate article next Thanksgiving) put together.

But as well as a unifying food, green bean casserole has recently celebrated the country's differences.  Because of the differences in cooking styles of the regions, variations have popped up.  In mine, for instance, I add avocado because they are readily available in California.  A Google search will give results for many other regional and personal variations of green bean casserole as well.

Green bean casserole.

That's all for today, hope you enjoyed the post!