When the first crisp day of fall arrives, I immediately start day dreaming about hot meals, in a way that would have seemed like madness in the intensely hot days of summer just a few weeks before. Yesterday was just such a day, when I reached for my coat before walking outside, and noticed a few leaves at the tops of the trees that were eager to put on their fall colors. At the end of the day, coming home cold and wind blown, I knew what I was craving was a homemade, hot and crisp from the oven casserole.

This craving for casserole made me wonder about the history of this dish, when and where it originated, how it became such an iconic American staple, and why it eventually fell into culinary abandonment. While the casserole has not been forgotten at the average American table, it certainly seems to be passé to the trend setting foodie elite, where recognition of its glory is relegated to Thanksgiving.

In one such holiday issue of Saveur magazine, in a feature about green bean casserole, Todd Coleman suggests a starting place for our historical investigation. “Like most American casseroles, this one can trace its roots to the Depression era, which gave rise to a number of one-dish meals that made the best of readily available and inexpensive ingredients” (The Queen’s Beans, Coleman 2007). The Great Depression as the origin of the casserole is surely a common and logical conception, but evidence suggests that it is much older.

“Casserole cookery has been around since prehistoric times, when it was discovered that cooking food slowly in a tightly covered clay vessel softened fibrous meats and blended succulent juices” (The Oxford companion to American food and drink, Smith 2007: 97).

The name for the food comes from the container in which it is cooked. The historical time line of the ceramic (or now glass) cooking vessel that we commonly know as the casserole dish is telling one. According to The Oxford Companion to Food, “The word [casserole] has a complicated history, starting with a classical Greek term for a cup (kuathos), progressing to a Latin word (cattia), which could mean both ladle and pan, then becoming an Old French word (casse), which then became casserole. Historically, casserole cookery has been especially popular in rural homes, where a fire is in any case burning all day and every day” (Davidson 1999: 143).

In An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto writes, “Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of its history is the complete and sudden change in the dish it refers to that has taken place within the past hundred years. When English took it over from French at the beginning of the eighteenth century it meant a dish of cooked rice molded into the shape of a casserole cooking pot and then filled with a savory mixture, say of chicken or sweetbreads. It was also applied by extension to a border of rice, or even of mashed potato, round some such dish as fricasee or curry. Then some time around the 1870s this sense of casserole seems to have slipped imperceptibly but swiftly into a dish of meat, vegetable, and stock or other liquid, cooked slowly in the oven in a closed pot”(Ayto 2002: 60-1).

“With the addition or subtractions of leftovers or inexpensive cuts of meat, the casserole is flexible and economical in terms of both ingredients and effort. Fannie Meritt Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1896) had one casserole recipe, for Casserole of Rice and Meat, to be steamed for forty-five minutes and served with tomato sauce. During the depression of the 1890s, the economic casserole provided a welcome way to stretch meat, fish, and poultry. In the twentieth century, casseroles took on a distinctive American identity” (Smith 2007: 97).

“Although the casserole has a long history in America, it did not begin to attract major attention until condensed, canned soups came on the market” (The Casserole Makes A Comeback With New Tricks And New Tastes, American Institute for Cancer Research 2000).

Dr. John T. Dorrance, a chemist with the Campbell Soup Company, invented condensed soup in 1897. The Campbell Soup Company aggressively marketed these products, “through regular offerings of cookery pamphlets and cookbooks emphasizing how soups could be enhanced or used as ingredients to make other dishes. Campbell’s published its first advertising cookbooklet in 1910 and has subsequently put out dozens of such items” (Smith 2007: 97).

Steven Gdula, author of The Warmest Room In The House, notes that the casserole was embraced during World War 1 for its ability to conserve both food and fuel. “The saving of fuel during wartime was just as important as the saving of food, and both noble efforts were combined in casserole cooking. There were few ways to cook that were more economical that tossing vegetables and meats into a pot with some broth and allowing them to stew for hours over low heat. In fact the casserole was really nothing more than an update of that old standby, the one-pot meal, which had been present in the America Kitchen for centuries” (Gdula 2008: 26).

Gdula cites an article from Good Housekeeping from March of 1917, titled the Law and Lure of Casseroles, quoting “The primitive woman herself was the inventor of casserole cooking, and in her pottery dishes she boiled and stewed meats, vegetables, and fruits, everything which she did not cook in the ashes or on a hardwood stick over the fire.”

Campbell’s efforts to market its soup for recipes increased, and “when the Depression hit in the 1930s, the company’s advertising budget shot up to $3.5 million. Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup was an absolute boon for housewives when it was introduced in 1934” (Smith 2007: 97).

The casserole “became an American staple in the Depression, when cheap but filling meals were essential, and rose in popularity during World War II as women began to enter the workplace in large numbers. It reached its heyday in the fifties” (American Institute for Cancer Research 2000).

“The idea of casserole cooking as a one-dish meal became popular in America in the twentieth century, especially in the 1950s when new forms of lightweight metal and glassware appeared on the market. The virtues of easy-to-prepare meals were increasingly promoted in the women’s magazines of the era, thereby supposedly freeing the housewife from the lengthy drudgery of the kitchen” (Mariani 1999: 59).

The casserole was not free of controversy during this time, however, as it was suggested in a 1954 newspaper editorial that “the next war between the sexes will be fought over the delicate issue of casseroles… A woman is never more coy than when she has cooked a coy casserole. All casseroles, I submit are, coy. They reflect the basic tease in women, the urge to attract by the mysterious, the tendency to persuade us that there is more to a dish female or culinary than meets the eye. Casseroles symbolize woman’s reluctance to face the fact that yesterday’s roast beef or chicken is still yesterday’s roast beef or chicken, now defrocked, sliced up and hidden like a poor relative under a melange of whipped potatoes, noodles or rice.” (Casseroles May Cause Next War Between Sexes, Saul Pett, The Tuscaloosa News, Jun 7, 1954)

While the casserole enjoyed tremendous popularity during the 1950s and 1960s, its popularity began to decline. “By the 1970s casserole cookery took on a less-than sophisticated image” (The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, Mariani 1999: 59).

“Part of the decline in the casserole’s popularity was due to an over-reliance on leftovers, canned foods and “instant” sauces.” (American Institute for Cancer Research 2000).

Whatever the reason for the decline of the casserole in the past, there has hardly been a more suitable time than now for us to give the casserole a second life. The life history of the casserole shows peaks of interest when times are tough. As we are facing tough economic times, with wages stagnant and food costs rising, as well as temperatures dropping, the advantages of the casserole can again make it relevant for foodies and eaters alike. With its hot, filling and creamy character, there has never been a better time to break out that old casserole dish and make something fantastic.