Thank you so much for sharing! My own mother was a wonderful cook and, while she made a delicious tuna casserole (but without noodles, which apparently is NOT de rigueur), she never made the Green Bean Casserole. I don't think I had it till the first time I had Thanksgiving at a friend's family's in college, and oh, my, it was wonderful.

Without saying I'm grateful to know she had Alzheimer's, I want to say that I've appreciated learning the amazing back-stories of people at my mother's memory care unit. And I hope those who cared for Mrs. Reilly knew she'd created a new American classic.

That is interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I love a good green bean casserole!

Although I'm not a fan of the green bean casserole, and I especially dislike canned Cream of Mushroom soup, my girls both love the stuff, even though I've now had to improvise to make it gluten free for my celiac oldest daughter.

So, Rest in Peace, Mrs. Reilly, your creation has been on my holiday tables many times.

Annie

I still make it for myself every few months - I make half of the recipe just for me.

Back in the 70's my neighbor was aghast that I had never had it or even heard of it. So I was gifted with the recipe and commanded to make it for upcoming Thanksgiving, which I had invited them to. Well. Every year since I've been expected to make it or there is major pouting going on between DH and DS. I like it but I can live without it. And yes there are many who claim to never let it touch their lips, especially some of the foodies on the cooking forum, it's a very touchy subject there! LOL!!

Be sure to read the link, and check out the original test card at the bottom of the article.

I'm not crazy about it but it has to be there every Thanksgiving for those who do!

I've never tried it. I have, however, had the tomato soup cake that she also came up with.

I remember making the green bean casserole one year with a cream sauce instead of canned soup and I thought they were all going to revolt lol

You have to make it right ;) I'm always asked to bring it to family holidays. A few people have tried green bean casserole that others make and say they don't like it. Then they try mine :) I love green bean casserole :)

I've made it with organic ingredients and it was just as good, if not better, than the super-processed classic.

One of the first recipes I gave to my daughter to make for Thanksgiving and she's made it every year since. So simple but a classic must have!

Love green bean casserole.

I never heard of her but her story is one to admire, as a career woman in Corporate America during a a time when having such a career wasn't easy, even though hers was a Home Ec type job developing recipes. The 1950s were the era when "recipes" morphed into combining different kinds of processed or prepared food and calling it something homemade and special. Working at Campbell's Soup, that was her job, to come up with "creations" using their products. Fair enough, but I'm grateful that most peoples' tastes and practices these days have moved away from using prepared foods as ingredients in recipes. No thanks.

I have had this concoction a few times. I can appreciate it for what is and the times it came out of but I prefer dishes with fresher individual ingredients.

PS - her's was a tough name. Unusual and harsh sounding. Almost like doofus or dork.

Dorcas is Greek in origin and means gazelle.

" Almost like doofus or dork. "

That is just an unfortunate and rather narrow minded American viewpoint. An unusual name yes, but one with a very long history dating back to the Old Testament. And a name that is very popular still in the UK, especially Ireland. And given her surname, I would assume Ms. Reilly came from an Irish heritage as well.

I'm narrow minded? I'm probably quite insular too? You couldn't be more wrong.

There were lots of names used 2000 years ago, mostly of people using languages no longer spoken, few or none of which are popular now. Is that supposed to give it some measure of gravitas? What percentage of people meeting her would walk away thinking "Wow, she sure has an difficult odd name"?

We picked comfortable, friendly, "normal" names for our own kids. Names that were easy to remember, easy to use, not odd. For that very reason. How about you?

Where's a face palm emoji when you need it?

Dorcas is an old fashioned name. A lot of names from her era, you don't hear any more....like Pearl, Mildred, Fanny. I went to school with a boy named Dorcas. He was a third....so his grandfather would have been even before Mrs. Reilly's time. I doubt the words "dork and doofus" were in use at the time of her birth.

I'm not a fan of green bean casserole, but have eaten it. I never ate a casserole until I took Home Ec in high school....tuna casserole. Not a fan of that either. My mother didn't fix casseroles, although they were popular in the fifties, when I grew up.

I do think Mrs. Reilly's story was interesting.

"What percentage of people meeting her would walk away thinking "Wow, she sure has an difficult odd name"?"

That percentage of people that are narrow minded, set in their ways and insular :-) And think that somehow god has granted them the defining viewpoint in all matters

"We picked comfortable, friendly, "normal" names for our own kids"

And why do you not think that Ms. Reilly's parents did not do the same???? What were popular names 90 odd years ago are not necessarily the same now, as names go through fads and cycles. It may be odd to you but then you are a very incidental player in this game. And to be bluntly honest, who the hell cares what you think??

She was named for her mother and named a daughter Dorcas as well. It is in the Bible.

Not a fan of the casserole but I am happy that so many do.

We like it,but I don't make it every Thanksgiving. When I do make it I use fresh green beans. Not a fan of most canned veggies and I only use frozen if fresh isn't available.

I could see Dorkus being shortened to a nickname something like Dorie. A lot of old fashioned names are making a comeback. The year i retired from the school we had an Opal, Pearl, Mary, Chloe (2), Violet, Madeline (Maddie), Adelaide (Addy), Audrey, Ava, Lucy, Clara, Claire, Evelyn, Joceline, Lily, Isabella and Olivia. I love Clara and if I'd had a daughter I would have named her Abigail with Abby as a nickname.

DawnInCal I guess I have an old fashioned name ;) My husband and I don't want kids but if we did I feel we would use names that probably aren't considered "cool" by todays standards. Old fashioned and a little nerdy. So I use those names on my pets :) But I agree I do think a lot of old fashioned names are coming back and I'm happy about that.

I like the old fashioned names too, Hareball. Prior to the kids with old fashioned names, we had a ton of students with trendy names such as Michaela, Emily or Emma (an old fashioned name that became hugely popular in the 90s and early 2000s), Cameron (both boys and girls), Lindsey (boys and girls), Justin, Dustin, Joshua, Cody, Levi, Dakota (boys and girls) and Ryan.

No kids here either and our dogs used to be named those old fashioned names too, but we are currently dogless. If we ever get another dog or two, maybe I'll get to use Clara and Abby! :-)

I love reading stuff like that, it’s trivia you’d never hear about otherwise. What a wonderful story she had and I love how the family shared it in such detail. Thank you for posting it.

"---We picked comfortable, friendly, "normal" names for our own kids. Names that were easy to remember, easy to use, not odd. For that very reason. How about you?---"

Folks, folks! Names, names!

I have no life. I read the phone book for fun. :-)

Many years ago, when CDs first came out, it was very expensive. I bought a set of CDs of telephone directories because the advertisement told me that "If you buy this set of CD phone directories, which has the White Pages and Yellow Pages of the entire country, you will be saving 400 trees."

I got fascinated by all the strange, funny, stupid names people had (real phone numbers with real addresses). Also names for their kids. There were at least 50 parents name their kids Elvis Presley, Many Marilyn Monroes, ---- Cheek, Nose, Eye, Breast, --- are all people's last names ---- I like Georgia Peach ------ I can write a book about this. I looked up Obama, there were less than 10 Obamas in the entire US, and more than half were Japanese. Obama is also a town in Japan.

Peace! Please?

dcarch

Speaking of odd names, when I lived in Santa Fe, my neighbor's first name was Doris. A man. Everyone called him D. He was a lot older than me...I don't know if that was a common name for a man when he was born. He named his 2 kids Gary and Gloria. Very mainstream names.

John Wayne's given name was Marion ...

The green bean casserole was never on our table when I was growing up. I know it of course and have eaten it, I don't believe I've ever made it myself.

My mother didn't particularly like to cook so wouldn't have known of anything trendy. That's not to say we didn't have canned or frozen green beans. DH's parents cooked everything from scratch and mostly from ingredients they grew or raised - I don't think he'd had any kind of casserole until we were married and I introduced him to tuna and noodles ;0)

My Grandmother's name was Delphia, which I always thought was lovely and unusual. Her sister was Geraldine, my Mother is Phyllis and my Aunt is Rosalee. I also had an Aunt LulaBelle and my Uncle Floyd's middle name was Delano, after Franklin. I guess my family just liked unusual names, or maybe they weren't that unusual then.

Anyway, I made the famous casserole a couple of times with white sauce, fresh mushrooms, "frizzled" onions. No go, no one would eat it, they all wanted the gloppy soup kind of casserole! And so, that's what we have but not every year. I'll cave in about every third year and have it, but sometimes we have vegetables I like instead.

My family knows about compromise, and since I'm the cook, I get to demand it. (grin)

Dcarch, when I was still working we had a lot of Brian Keith/John Wayne/Doris Day clients. We also had a Candy Appel, a Meta Head and a Mercedes Binz, as well as a family whose last name was Schmuck and another family of Hunsuckers. I often thought that I'd just have to change my name.

Given those, Dorcas doesn't seem so difficult to live with.

Annie

dcarch, you know that Obama is his last name, of course (I'm thinking that this thread was mostly about first names).. Did you look up Barak?

I've never made Green Bean Casserole but do like it on the few occasions I've encountered it (usually during the holidays). So I'm making it now, in Dorcas' honor. I guess the original GBC recipe was to be made entirely from canned products, but I used fresh green beans just 'cuz. Interested to see how it comes out.

John!!! I'm happy to see you here again, but never thought it would be green bean casserole that lured you back in. (grin)

Annie

It's a holiday meal ... and always requested ... dish here. Always use a big store bought can of green beans and make two massive green bean bakes. My family likes it cold, and I like them with leftover stuffing on my homemade Parker house rolls. It's a way to make sure the family gets its greens ...

Hi annie. Tonight's GBC is nearly the only thing I've cooked in many months that wasn't "quickly heat something before stuffing it in one's mouth". I've been so busy with some local advocacy projects, that things like cooking, hobbies, reading, vacations, any sort of relaxed fun personal stuff have gone by the wayside. It'll be like this until around March-May 2019 and then I'll have my life back, and you'll see me around more.

I did glaze and roast some pork tonight though. Red wine, stock reduction, and honey. Then sliced it, glazed the slices, and roasted some more. People liked it. I was relieved as I've largely forgotten how to cook.

I love green been casserole - next to stuffing it's my favorite Thanksgiving treat. But I don't make it according to the recipe on the can. I fried my own onions. No mushroom soup. I use a blend of three kinds of mushrooms. And of course, I use fresh green beans. It's heavenly.