Mine never made it, no one in my family ever did,I don't know anyone in
the south who did, maybe they do, but I can't stand it, I don't like
casseroles, anyway, except two I make, a yellow summer squash one & a corn
one, which is actually corn pudding.I never see tuna casserole at my
church? pot lucks? either. Maybe it's more of a northern
dish.?
NOTE from Ginny, below
is an interesting article on tune
noodle casserole.? Also a link
to the web page source.?? My
own grandmas and mom religiously
made tuna noodle casserole and so did I
(still do). However the
recipe given in the article is way too complicated
for my simple
cooking style.?? We made our casseroles with cream
of mushroom
soup, cooked noodles, canned tuna, a splash of milk,
sometimes
canned mushroom pieces and/or canned peas. ? We topped
the
casserole with crushed potato chips, bread crumbs, or
cheese
depending on the mood and ingredients on hand.
Anyway, enjoy the article --Ginny
from
A Brief History of Tuna
Casserole
BY: HEATHER ARNDT ANDERSON ILLUSTRATIONS: ELEANOR SKRZAT
?
Although most associated with 1950s Middle America, this
iconic
bootstrap recipe first popped up in the Pacific Northwest
in
1930.
There are no lukewarm feelings when it comes to tuna
casserole.
People are hot or cold on the stuff. Cookbook author Helen
Evans
Brown fell decidedly in the latter category. She
intentionally,
defiantly, left it out of her seminal West Coast Cook
Book
(1952), writing that “[i]f, for instance, a dish composed of
tuna
fish, canned mushroom soup, and corn flakes is in any
danger of becoming a
dish of the region, I prefer to ignore it.
If by doing so I can give it
ever so gentle a nudge toward
oblivion, that is good.”
Helen Evans Brown’s good friend James Beard—probably
somewhat
reluctantly—included a modified recipe for it in his
1955
casserole cookbook. That same year, he lamented in a letter
to
Brown that “only tuna fish and potato chips and Campbell’s soup
seem
to sell, if you can believe the recipes.”
Although it’s mainly associated with Middle America, and
the
1950s housewife, the earliest printed recipes for tuna
casserole
appeared two decades earlier in the Pacific Northwest. The
first
one, “Noodles and Tuna Fish en Casserole,” came from
Sunset
Magazine, from a “Mrs. W. F. S.” residing in
Kennewick,
Washington, in 1930. The same year, a “tuna fish and
noodles
casserole” appears on a menu suggested by the 100% real
The
Modern Hospital magazine, which probably sounds pretty
appropriate
to the dish’s haters. (Published by the American
Hospital Association from
1913 to 1974, the journal offered the
latest guidance in nursing,
occupational and physical therapies,
hospital administration, and,
evidently, nutritious and
well-balanced casseroles.)
Two years later a version appeared in Cook Book of Many
Lands—a
cookbook that the Americanization Department of
Portland,
Oregon’s Parent-Teacher Association established to help
Portland
women relate to their immigrant neighbors. Although there
is
nothing specifically German about the “German Noodles and Tuna
Fish”
recipe, it does bear a striking resemblance to the Sunset
recipe. It’s made
from the same Holy Trinity of noodles, tuna,
and white sauce, with a pretty
pimento garnish. Had James Beard
known of its Pacific Northwest roots (he
was a native
Oregonian), he may have been warmer on the stuff.
Mrs. W. F. S.’s groundbreaking recipe included the
mushrooms and
the cheese topping familiar today; in fact, the addition
of
mushrooms probably had something to do with the widespread
switch to
canned cream of mushroom soup in lieu of laborious
white sauce. The
introduction of Campbell’s cream of mushroom
soup in 1934 was the
game-changer that cemented tuna casserole’s
place in the American
housewife’s culinary arsenal. Aside from
the canned tuna, it was this
ingredient’s ubiquity during World
War II (a nadir of American ingredient
availability and culinary
ingenuity) that inspired the inimitable M. F. K.
Fisher to
include a noodle-less version of tuna casserole in How to Cook
a
Wolf (1942), offering the caveat that “condensed mushroom soup,
while
far from perfection, is a very present help in time of
culinary
trouble.”
After the war, tuna casserole remained in the
housewife’s
rotation, but the dish shed its Pacific Northwest roots
and
became associated with funerals (it’s a thing, swear!), and
the
Midwest. This all makes sense. It contains all of the components
of
the canonical hotdish (what Midwesterners call casseroles):
protein, a
vegetable of some kind, a starchy substrate, and a
creamy binder. That
bastion of lay cooking, allrecipes.com,
features over 2,500 recipes for
tuna casserole.
For these reasons, too, it was a permanent fixture
in
mid-century home-ec curricula: economical and time-saving, with
no
real cooking skill required besides the ability to wield a
can opener. The
“no skill required” might be why it is so
maligned, but if done with even
the smallest amount of care or
intent (which really isn’t difficult, let’s
be honest), it has
all of the elements of any legitimate comfort food:
bouncy
noodles; firm flakes of briny tuna and sweet, crunchy peas;
a
creamy, savory sauce deftly binding it all together; and a
lacy
melted-cheese matrix suspending the bits of crispity
topping.
Miraculously, the cheesy topping avoids the wrongness of
merely
existing in the same place as canned fish: it just makes
the
topping more fatty and crispy. Sublimity.
My own mother—who cooked professionally and loathed doing
it at
home—relied fairly heavily on tuna casserole to keep her
family
fed. I grew up on the version one creates when the larder
is
filled solely by food stamp spoils and food bank donations, but
I
always loved it as a kid. Since I have more time, enjoy
cooking, and can
afford slightly better ingredients, I’ve been
making a nicer version of it
for nearly my entire adult life.
?
The Tuna Casserole is Not For
Wimps
4 servings
?
The beauty of a tuna casserole is its infinite
adaptability. You
can dump two cans into cooked pasta and call it good, or
you can
zhoozh it up with home-canned albacore and fresh lemon
thyme
from the garden (like I do). With a combination of canned tuna
and
homemade white sauce, this recipe hits the sweet spot
between effort and
ease. I firmly believe that, in the absence
of rationing and all of its
caveats, MFK Fisher would have
enjoyed this recipe. I bet it could have
even turned Helen Evans
Brown around.
INGREDIENTS
??? MUSHROOM SAUCE
??? 2 tablespoons butter
??? ? cup finely diced button or cremini
mushrooms
??? 2 tablespoons minced shallots (or mild
onion)
??? 3 tablespoons flour
??? 1 ? cup milk (whole is best)
??? pinch of dried thyme
??? salt and pepper
??? CASSEROLE
??? 8 ounces (half a bag) wide egg noodles
??? 10 ounces (2 cans) solid white albacore,
drained (I prefer
water-packed)
??? 1 cup frozen peas
??? ? cup grated cheddar cheese
??? ? cup dried bread crumbs, panko, or French
fried onions
??? Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter your
favorite casserole dish.
(I use the Corningware one I inherited from my
grandmother, who
bought it with S&H Green Stamps in the 1970s.)
??? In a medium sauté pan, melt the butter over
medium-high
heat. Add the mushrooms and shallots, and cook until
the
shallots are translucent (about five minutes), stirring often.
Turn
the heat down to medium-low, then sprinkle the flour over
the sautéed
mushrooms and shallots, stirring to coat. Keep
stirring and cooking for a
few minutes, until the roux becomes
fragrant.
??? Turn off the burner, and slowly pour in the
milk, stirring
with enough vigor to smooth out any lumps. Turn the burner
back
on, to medium-low, and simmer for about five minutes. Add the
thyme
and season with salt and pepper to taste.
??? While you’re making the sauce, boil the
noodles in salted
water according to the package directions, then drain.
Crumble
the tuna into the pot with the noodles, add the peas, then
add
in the finished sauce, stirring to thoroughly combine.
Scrape
everything into the buttered casserole and top with the
cheese,
then the bread crumbs/panko/French fried onions.
??? Bake until the cheese is melted, the topping
browned, and
the sauce bubbly (about 15 minutes).
--
Ginny Butterfield
Cranberry Twp, Pa
