Church Recipe Books
The Church Recipe Book
A common place to find casserole recipes is a church recipe book. These books are bound collections of recipes contributed by the congregation and circulated within the church community. Often, copies of the recipe books are sold as part of a fundraising effort. The recipe books are divided into sections, and without fail, each book includes casseroles as a main dish category. As the "History" page explains, casseroles held an iconic place in American cuisine during the 1950s and 1960s because they allowed for stretching food during tough times, such as world wars and economic depressions. Casseroles often did not require meat, fish, or poultry, and when they did, home cooks could use leftovers or inexpensive cuts of meat, like canned tuna or luncheon meats. For instance, in the Temple Terrace Presbyterian Cookbook, for instance, one recipe for Spaghetti Corn Casserole uses luncheon meat or canned vienna sausages.
Tips & Tricks
Two of the recipe books included in this exhibit offer tips for cooking the dishes in the casserole section. In Thank Heaven for Home Made Cooks, the composers advice home cooks to double the batch for a casserole and save one for a "busy day." They also recommend lining the casserole dish with foil so that the home cook can easily freeze the casserole and still use the dish for other recipes. The composers of Recipes and Remembrances also recommend making additional batches to freeze for later. They also advise that certain ingredients, like green pepper, might change the flavor in a frozen casserole. Finally, they include a note that explains, "glazed pottery, earthenware, glass, metal...take your pick. All can be used for casseroles." As long as the dish is oven safe, the material yields similar results.
Repeating Recipes
When looking through the casserole recipes submitted to these church recipe books, some of the recipes seem to be duplicates, e.g. the five different recipes for Broccoli Casserole in Recipes and Remembrances. However, upon closer inspection, each recipe offers it's own take on Broccoli Casserole: some use Cheez Whiz while others use grated cheese; some use Ritz crackers while others use breadcrumbs. There is a center of gravity, though--they all use broccoli (often frozen) and condensed cream of mushroom soup. Both ingredients are consistent with the notion of casseroles using frozen and canned ingredients as a way to save time and money.