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[johnna holloway]

Johnnae llyn Lewis sends greetings.

Actually, I'd add a couple of factors to this discussion.
As someone who grew up on a midwest farm where
the families have been farming in the state of Illinois
since the early 1830's,
it seems to me that one ended up with these long
simmered in the oven dishes, not only on Sundays
and church, but also on  heavy farm workdays...
especially harvest season and haying... or even
earlier threshing luncheons... although that tended
to be meals of fried chicken and ham... but threshing
supper had to be either leftovers or something that
had been left all day on its own. Sunday lunches on the
farm usually were fried chicken or ham... something fixed
and fancy even if the farm wife and hired girl had to get
up before dawn to kill the chickens and still get to
church on time.

Then there is the school cafeteria luncheon factor
where the home ec people got turned loose with the
USDA free commodities and had to dream up 180 lunches
using hamburger (minus Fridays when it was minced fish
sticks because maybe someone was Catholic).
Lastly their survival as hot dishes was ensured somewhat
by the slow cooker which was that mainstay and gift of choice
for every bride and home of the '60's and 70's.
The goulash and stroganoff of which you speak probably
could be done in a slow cooker and undoubtedly was.

(When I wrote the Period Palates columns back in 1980-81-82,
the T.I. editors specifically requested that all the main dish
recipes be adapted or suitable to slow cookers, so even the
SCA wasn't immune at that time.)

By the way, Jean Anderson in The American Century Cookbook says that
it was 1903 before there was a chapter on casseroles in an
American cookbook, although there was an entry labeled casserole
in the 1896 Boston Cooking School. I will have to delve into
Can She Bake A Cherry Pie? which I own but haven't read yet. It may
offer some insight, as there are several pages on casseroles and the
like. I also have this feeling that the Dictionary of American Regional
English might offer some insight, so I will have to check into it.

Johnna Holloway


"Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy" wrote:
>

> So, at risk of bringing up a topic related to food history, although not
> medieval food history, I have a question for the Middle American food
> mavens out there. ...........................SNIPPED HEAVILY>>>>>>
>
> At the risk of leading the witness, I wonder if there's any basis to
> suggest that the hotdish is the American version of Cholent, something
> you'd possibly put up the night before, then leave in the oven to finish
> cooking during a vigorous Sunday morning of Scripture-of-your-choice-thumping?
>
> In our earlier discussion of goulash, it was suggested (and fairly well
> supported) that what had happened was a case of parallel evolution. I'm
> not completely convinced that this is the case for the two Stroganoff
> dishes, but does anybody have any ideas on this?
>
> Adamantius
> --
> Phil & Susan Troy
>
> troy at asan.com
>
> "It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
> things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
> let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98
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