Green bean casserole is unique in that it is a tradition that was made for the purpose of commercialism, by a company to promote business (namely Campbell's Soup Company; original recipe here). This creates a lack of place, or a placelessness, for this food.
What do I mean by place? Usually, when people associate something with a place, this is known among cultural geographers as a "sense of place". I am using the word "place" in a slightly different way to mean the geographic space (location or region) that a food is commonly associated with. It does not have to be a place of origin. As mentioned in a previous post, the original form of Hollandaise sauce probably originated in Holland, but is now associated with France as its culinary place.
The closest thing green bean casserole has to a culinary place is the United States. But can this qualify as a nationally unifying food? I'd say if there's any food I can think of that does, this would be it. Made by a corporation, all across the U.S. and within it, and enjoyed on a national holiday by millions, this is more of a national food than the apple pie, burger (both German in origin), or turkey (raised long before the nation was founded, I might go into it on a separate article next Thanksgiving) put together.
But as well as a unifying food, green bean casserole has recently celebrated the country's differences. Because of the differences in cooking styles of the regions, variations have popped up. In mine, for instance, I add avocado because they are readily available in California. A Google search will give results for many other regional and personal variations of green bean casserole as well.
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| Green bean casserole. |
That's all for today, hope you enjoyed the post!
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