Green bean casserole is among the most popular Thanksgiving recipes for 2011. The classic green dish has been a trending Google search for the last two weeks.So I put out a humble little list of shopworn holiday expressions that have outlived any usefulness, even in journalism, and people call me a Grinch (people are so predictable) and accuse me of thought policing. I figure they’ll start reaching for rope and looking for high tree limbs once I disparage that loathsome Thanksgiving green bean casserole.
You can see what I said a year ago, and how the public responded.
I am not a bigot.* If my mother and grandmother were still cooking green beans the whole morning with potatoes and a chunk of pork for flavoring, I would gladly tuck in. If Kathleen, my wife, were to steam them and serve them with a sprinkle of sea salt and a dash of lemon juice, they would be grand. I had them in Florida years ago battered and deep-fried. (Southerners would eat lint if it were battered and deep-fried. Come to think of it, just about any American would.)
But dousing them with Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup, which looks like something that has already been though the digestive tract once, is a survival of American culinary practice better abandoned.
Thanksgiving is still nearly five days away. There is still time to save yourselves, and your families.
*With turkey, either. I’ve eaten it with the traditional chestnut, cornbread, and sausage-based dressings. I’ve had it—well, once—with sauerkraut, in the Baltimorean fashion. I’ve eaten it with mango salsa, which I still think is the best accompaniment. There is no point in being doctrinaire about turkey.
You can see what I said a year ago, and how the public responded.
I am not a bigot.* If my mother and grandmother were still cooking green beans the whole morning with potatoes and a chunk of pork for flavoring, I would gladly tuck in. If Kathleen, my wife, were to steam them and serve them with a sprinkle of sea salt and a dash of lemon juice, they would be grand. I had them in Florida years ago battered and deep-fried. (Southerners would eat lint if it were battered and deep-fried. Come to think of it, just about any American would.)
But dousing them with Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup, which looks like something that has already been though the digestive tract once, is a survival of American culinary practice better abandoned.
Thanksgiving is still nearly five days away. There is still time to save yourselves, and your families.
*With turkey, either. I’ve eaten it with the traditional chestnut, cornbread, and sausage-based dressings. I’ve had it—well, once—with sauerkraut, in the Baltimorean fashion. I’ve eaten it with mango salsa, which I still think is the best accompaniment. There is no point in being doctrinaire about turkey.
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