For the last many years I have made green bean casserole for Thanksgiving. This includes the infamous time I accidentally let a green bean can lid slide into the mix unnoticed – I baked the casserole lid and all. People ate it and said it tasted good until they found the metal lid after digging into the mix. Man, did I take a lot of abuse for that one. My wife never lets me live it down, and she gladly shares this story often as just one of my numerous cooking misadventures.
Anyhow, I am in charge of the casserole this Thanksgiving, and I recently stumbled onto the history of the green bean concoction. It is an interesting bit of trivia for the holiday, so I thought I would share it with you.
The Campbell’s Soup Company had its own kitchen, in Camden, New Jersey, dedicated to pumping out recipe pamphlets. In 1955, a home economist named Dorcas Reilly worked as a supervisor it the home economics department of the Campbell's Test kitchen, and she was tasked with creating a recipe for a feature that would appear in the Associated Press. The recipe had to be based on ingredients that any home cook would have on hand, including Campbell’s mushroom soup and green beans.
(Stephanie Butler. “The Origins of the Mysterious Green Bean Casserole.” History.com.August 31, 2018.)
Dorcas (Which, by the way, was pretty much what I felt like after cooking my own “lid recipe” – a real “dork.”) had earned a degree in home economics from Drexel University (known then as the Drexel Institute of Technology). According to Today’s Vidya Rao, she and her team initially toyed with adding celery salt and ham to the recipe, but ultimately settled on six simple, affordable ingredients that could be stirred together in a casserole dish and popped into the oven for 25 minutes. The prep time was minimal; the dish worked well with frozen or canned green beans, and the fried onions were pre-packaged.
(Brigit Katz. “The Woman Who Invented the Green Bean Casserole.” Smithsonain Magazine. October 26, 2018.)
Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom variety had been around since 1934. It was widely used as casserole filler in the Midwest, popping up in enough Minnesotan hotdish recipes that it was sometimes referred to as “Lutheran binder” – those militant Lutherans, using a creamy soup to bind casseroles together. But no one thought to add frozen green beans to the mix until Reilly came along. The fried onions on top were an easy way to add texture and brighten the color of a grey-green dish, and to add a certain festive touch to the proceedings.
So in 1955, Dorcus successfully devised and tested the green bean casserole recipe. Reilly’s recipe was immediately popular. Originally called “Green Bean Bake, it was the perfect recipe for post-war America when cheap, fuss-free cooking was all the rage. The lifting of wartime rations on canned goods, coupled with innovations in canning and freezing that made packaged foods more accessible than ever, created a culture of convenience cooking. Made with minimal ingredients almost always on hand and easily fixed the day ahead and reheated, green bean casserole was a hit. Though they continued to shoulder the responsibility of keeping the family fed, an ever-growing number of women were entering the workforce, fueling the demand for easy-to-make meals.
“We all thought this is very nice, etc., and then when we got the feelings of the consumer, we were really kinda pleasantly shocked,” Reilly once said. “I’m very proud of this, and I was shocked when I realized how popular it had become.” She always insisted the invention was a team effort.
(Brigit Katz. “The Woman Who Invented the Green Bean Casserole.” Smithsonain Magazine. October 26, 2018.)
Recipe Variation
Dorcas would often share that the first time she made her famous recipe, it did not receive the highest rating in Campbell’s internal testing. Yet, it was her persistence and creativity that led to an enduring recipe that will live on for decades to come.
(“IN MEMORY OF THE AMERICAN INVENTOR DORCAS REILLY.” Campbells. October 19, 2018.)
In a 2005 AP interview marking the recipe's 50th anniversary, Reilly said she didn't remember having a hand in it because the dish was among hundreds that were created during her time at Campbell's. She also helped create a tomato soup meatloaf, a tuna noodle casserole and Sloppy Joe-like "souperburgers."
(Shawn Marsh. “Woman who created iconic Campbell's Soup green bean casserole dies at 92.” The Associated Press. October 24, 2018.)
Campbell’s now estimates 40% of the Cream of Mushroom soup sold in the US goes into making green bean casserole. And, this Thanksgiving, some 20 million Americans will enjoy a green bean casserole.
In 2002, Campbell's donated Dorcas Reilly's original recipe card to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. And Reilly kept cooking. She said in 2013 that she was still experimenting in her own kitchen. Her motto at work and at home, she said, was food should be fun; food should be happy.
Reilly said that whenever Campbell Soup would have a recipe contest, she would always see recipes submitted that were variations on her green bean casserole recipe, and they’d be called something like “Grandma’s green bean casserole.”
Dorcas Reilly died in Haddonfield, New Jersey, on October 15, 2018, at the age of 92. You may not know her name, but her legacy will live on atop the tables of millions of families on Thanksgiving. Reilly’s famous recipe is still found on Campbell Soup can labels and in ads and commercials. Campbell’s officials say that the recipe is so easy that absolutely anyone can make it … even me.
To close, somehow I feel associated with Dorcas Reilly – an inventive American cook. If I ever find my Tin Lid Green Bean Casserole with its silvery-white chemical element of atomic number 50 catches on, I will be yet another link in her long legacy. Just a warning though – don't try this lid recipe at home. My shame continues to this day.
Note: The canned food industry in the United States stopped using lead-soldered cans in 1991. In 1995, the Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule prohibiting the use of lead solder in all food cans, including imported products. Metal cans, which are made of sheet steel - sometimes with a coating of tin - are now welded closed at the seams. Thank you, Lord.
(“Remembering Dorcas Reilly, Inventor Of The Classic Green-Bean Casserole.” All Things Considered. National Public Radio. November 22, 2018.)
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