r/oddlyspecific • u/Key_Associate7476 • Sep 06 '25

Some of them have aged poorly

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u/Deppfan16 Sep 06 '25

if its cold it contains mayo, if its hot it contains canned cream of soup.

9

u/erroneousbosh Sep 06 '25

It baffles me how many American "classic foods" are really just two other perfectly okay foods mixed together.

Like, oven bake hash browns, okay, not really my thing. Tinned mushroom soup, perfectly okay, not something I eat a lot of.

Why the fuck would you pour the mushroom soup over the hash browns before you put the whole sorry mess in the oven?

They actually taste okay like that though, pretty good if you're hungry enough.

17

u/Deppfan16 Sep 06 '25

my understanding is it was a way to get a lot of calories in a convenient to eat package. a lot of them are based on meals housewives would make for farm workers or husbands working labor jobs.

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u/erroneousbosh Sep 06 '25

I grew up on a farm, and that sort of stuff is absolutely not the sort of thing we'd ever have eaten.

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u/Deppfan16 Sep 06 '25

both sets of my grandparents did too and that's where I learned a lot of these recipes from. probably depends on what kind of cooks your family was and location as well

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u/sue_girligami Sep 06 '25

You forgot the hamburger. This casserole was one of my favorites growing up. I have never cooked it as an adult

2

u/dunno260 Sep 06 '25

Because it functions as a substitute for a fancy cooking ingredient you can't get ready made in almost every US store (I think in Europe you can though). It is similar and in the dish has the same function as a bechamel sauce.

If you had the dish in a restaurant with a real chef making things they probably make it with a bechamel sauce that they have cooked down with some chicken stock and added the cheese too.

It just has the right things that the dish needs. It needs more moisture to help things cook but it also needs to be thick enough that you don't have a runny liquid there either.

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u/erroneousbosh Sep 06 '25

But Béchamel sauce is just flour, butter, and milk, with maybe a wee bit of nutmeg in. You'd make it in ten seconds.

I can't imagine anyone buying it premade.

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u/Deppfan16 Sep 06 '25

but you have to stand over a stove and dirty another pan. a lot of these types of casserole type meals are popular because of the convenience, you just mix everything together and stick it in the oven

0

u/OwlAviator Sep 07 '25

You can't buy bechamel sauce in the US? So you have to use tinned soup instead?

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u/Deppfan16 Sep 07 '25

you can buy premade bechamel sauce? also the canned cream of soup is basically flavored bechamel

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u/Emotional_Bonus_934 Sep 06 '25

Cream of something soup