Green Beans

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Why people have green bean casserole for Thanksgiving?

I don't understand. I really don't know what the appeal is.

Dorcas Reilly (1926–2018) created the recipe in 1955 while working in the home economics department at the Campbell's Soup Company in Camden, New Jersey. The recipe was created for a feature article for the Associated Press; the requirement was for a quick and easy dish using ingredients most US households kept on hand.
It was originally marketed as an everyday side dish but became popular for Thanksgiving dinners in the 1960s after Campbell's placed the recipe on the can's label. The recipe popularized the combination of the soup with green beans. Campbell's Soup now estimates that 40 percent of the Cream of Mushroom soup sold in the United States goes into making green bean casserole

seems a bit like boeuf bourguignon, with green beans and mushrooms
"Bourguignon" is, since the mid-nineteenth century, a culinary term applied to various dishes prepared with wine or with a mushroom and onion garnish

they say beans are good for the heart

Never heard of that dish, but I don't live in the USA. I'm only 10 miles North, though.

Around here we use mushroom soup to top pork chops with - pretty sure that's common in the USA, too, as I recall seeing it on The Simpsons and maybe some sitcoms.

My dad's family makes mushroom soup sandwiches - I just made some the last couple days.. like grilled cheese, but no cheese, just a fat tablespoon of Campbell's mushroom soup straight out of the can between the buttered bread & grilled.

I'd eat mushroom soup and green beans, though. Green beans are ok just cooked, too. Maybe with a little butter on them.


The dish people serve here at Thanksgiving that Most people don't like are brussel sprouts. It's like why force yourself to eat these things? I mean, they're not terrible and I'll eat a few simply because they probably have healthy things in them.. but they don't taste great by any means and I'm sure only a very small % of people would ever miss them if they didn't get made & served.

Pretty surprising that 40% of the mushroom soup sold in the USA gets served over green beans, though. Never would have guessed.

I once decided to make green bean casserole like the Americans do for their Yankee Thankee, but it was kind of gross. Green string beans covered in lumpy off-white and grey goop was not appetizing in the slightest. String beans are better with just butter and pepper on them.

It's mostly because of nostalgia. They're not bad, but I don't know that I'd care for them if there wasn't an emotional connection.

I think during WWII people in North America started making meals out of things that were cheap and easy to get at the time because of food shortages, and they've stuck around. Like macaroni dishes. My mother would sometimes make a meal with canned tomato soup, cooked macaroni or rice, ground beef, and maybe chopped onion and some spices. She called it Hungarian goulash, so I was confused when I found the recipe in a book and it was nothing like what we ate, which is really "American" goulash. It was still good, though. I still make it sometimes.

So maybe green bean casserole was created because it was cheap and easy to make and added some nutritional value to a meal. I'm thinking I should have mixed some water into the condensed cream of mushroom soup...

I've never heard of the casserole.

I used to love snapping the ends off green beans to help mum prepare them just as a veg.

The dish itself was created by food scientists as a way of pushing their product. The fact that it's also relatively cheap and easy to make probably didn't hurt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_bean_casserole

I don't know what a casserole is (yes, I could Google it) but it doesn't sound too good to me. I do like green beans by themselves, though (and that's saying a lot with me, who can't eat the vast majority of what normal people can)

What is the significance of green beans and thanksgiving?

None at all, I would guess.

American vegetables intrigue me. I want to try squash and collar greens one day. I also want to eat authentic pumpkin pie.

The more you eat, the more you fart.

There are a lot of different types of squash - you never tried any? Collard greens are similar to cooked spinach.

I love pumpkin pie but it does vary a lot - so don't give up too easily.
I have a recipe to make pumpkin pie with a pecan cake batter crust. It's simple and cooks upside down. I'd post it but I have to find it first. Maybe before the next Thanksgiving!