red-pill me on hotdish

>>8977941

It's shitty food dating back to the cringeworthy ads of the 1950's. It's not really cooking, is more of "dump an can for BRAND X soup over a can of BRAND X green beans" and then stuck in the oven so mommie could watch TV and gossip instead of actually cook. It's also a favorite for potlucks and similar get-togethers when someone has to bring food but they're too lazy or inept to cook something better.

...at least that's been the exact truth for every incarnation I have never seen. I'm sure it's theoretically possible to make one with good ingredients and actual skill applied to the cooking process, but I've never seen such a thing. I'm also sure those same ingredients could be made in a much better, alternate, preparation.

>>8977941
Is hotdish another word for casserole? If so, some are terrable and some are great drunk food. If any of the ingrediants start with "cream of" just throw that shit away and slap whoever made it.

>>8977954
I make my own all the time with good ingredients.

brown and season some nice thick pork chops while you finish a pot of basmati rice, deglaze the pan with some white wine and make a nice little pan sauce with some onion and a couple cloves of garlic. make your own 'cream of chicken' or whatever with stock, milk or half-n-half and flour. steam some broccoli, carrots, peas. put the pork chops on the bottom of a casserole dish, mix the rice and all the other ingredients together a bowl and season with salt n pepper. and stick that shit in the oven until the pork chops are done.

if you want that extra amerilard flare some shredded cheddar cheese on top toward the end is always an option ;-)

>>8977980
Hot dish is a kind of casserole that is generally associated with places like minnesota and north dakota

>>8978052
This. Same idea, just a regional variation in name.

>>8978021
That sounds like it could actually be good! Too bad 99.9% of them you encounter are overcooked slop from a can.

Is tuna noodle casserole a "hotdish," then? I'm an Eurofriend from Euroland who currently lives in US. I had one such tuna noodle casserole at a friend's place and thought it was horrid. True to form, I was gracious and polite and found something nice to say when asked how it was ("it's very creamy!") rather than say something rude ("it's overcooked and saltier than a pilchard's ballsack").
When they gave me the recipe, I saw that it was open a can of this, mix with two cans of that, add overcooked to fuck noodles and mix with a pack of frozen the other then top with crisp onions and bake.

Decided to try my hand at making one at home from scratch and thought it was considerably tastier and not as salty.

Was there ever a time in Ameriland culinary history where this wasn't an example of recombinant cuisine?

>>8978178
I mean casseroles like that usually are made with a bunch of canned shit, and then old grandma's hide the recipe like they grew tuna casserole from their garden or something. it just depends on whether or not someone has the sense to make it on their own without a bunch of disgusting preservative and sodium filled bs. I do love a good tuna casserole with egg noodles though. damn.

>>8978178
>Is tuna noodle casserole a "hotdish," then?
Absolutely. It's just a regional dialect.

>Was there ever a time in Ameriland culinary history where this wasn't an example of recombinant cuisine?

I think that the idea probably came from old French dishes. They had many casseroles in which vegetables were layered in dish, covered with a creamy sauce, and baked in the oven. I could certainly see a pioneer family doing that--after all, they had milk from cows, flour, veg from the garden, etc. But Tuna noodle? No, canned tuna wasn't a thing until well past the colonial days. Not much tuna in the American Midest....

The modern version is surely a descent of the 1950's era food ads pushing cheap canned food any easy recipes.

>>8978178
>Is tuna noodle casserole a "hotdish," then?
Yes it is.
Hot dish is basically mixing veggies, some kind of protein, starch, cream of ___ soup, and topping it off with more starch than throwing it in the oven. Everything is canned or frozen because this dates back to the 50s and 60s where the craze of easy meal canned food cooking took off in the USA. HotDish is just a Minnesota slang for the kind of casserole where you just throw a bunch of the premade stuff in it and add cream of whatever soup.
>Was there ever a time in Ameriland culinary history where this wasn't an example of recombinant cuisine?
World War two basically fucked American cuisine forever. Because the was was not fought at home, America became a giant manufacturing plant, and perfected canning and processing food. Then after the war the US came out on top, with minimal life losses, no property damage, and half of europe owing them money and the other half in rubble. So we had no competition on the global market and were able to manufacture and sell cheap household goods and canned/processed foods. Soon the American media began to push the idea of "semi-homemade" where you just throw crap together and serve it, and it seriously fucked us. Look at any American cookbook from the 50s or 60s its all terrible casseroles and jell-o molds.
The time where the Average Joe American cooked their own meals from scratch is long gone, replaced by convenience.

>>8978222
>The time where the Average Joe American cooked their own meals from scratch is long gone, replaced by convenience.

And it's fucking sad, too. Especially because there's never been a better time to get involved with sourcing good ingredients and making a lot of your own things. The internet & global shipping has made it easy to learn & source whatever you need. People years ago couldn't mail-order spices from the farflung corners of the world or use their telephone to watch Pepin teach them French, Morimoto to each them Japanese, Ramsay to teach them British, etc.

>>8978241
But I think that's the very reason it isn't long gone. As a matter of fact, I believe there is something of a renaissance happening where people are getting into cooking their own food from scratch. I grew up on that 60's and 70's style housewife garbage, but since I've got into cooking all my stuff is from scratch. Hell I even cure my own meat and ferment my own hot sauce. I think the future is pretty bright for a revival of real home cooking in the US.

>>8978298

Agreed, I do think it's changing. I know a lot people who are now discovering things like raising backyard chickens, ferments, charcuterie, gardening, homebrew...or even just basic "scratch cooking". They assumed all their life that those things are difficult/impractical but the net has taught them that no, they're very accessible.

>>8978198
I made mine with egg noodles, yeah.

>>8978199
> They had many casseroles in which vegetables were layered in dish, covered with a creamy sauce, and baked in the oven.
Exactly! We have many such dishes in ye olde country, cauliflower with cheese being a very common one
>par-boil cauliflower and potatoes then drain and place into a baking dish
>sauté chopped streaky bacon until crisp then remove solids and add to the baking dish, leaving fat behind
>caramelise onions in the bacon grease then add to the baking dish
>mix all these ingredients together with shredded butterkäse
>pour béchamel sauce over
>top with a sprinkling of either buttercrumbs or more shredded butterkäse
>bake until bubbly and golden on top
Not exactly layered, but fills the same casserole niche as American casseroles, just with fresh ingredients rather than tinned.

>>8978222
When I made mine, I didn't use cream of whatever because I figured that was the culprit for the casserole's extreme saltiness. Instead, I made a strong fish stock using dry stockfish and diluted it with a bit of half-cream and using this mixture to make a béchamel sauce (fishamel sauce?).
I used tinned tuna because I wasn't gonna spend a whole lotta dosh on fresh when I strongly prefer fresh tuna rare. I did use fresh shelled sweetpeas, though. Altogether, the whole casserole must've cost me about $5.50 and provided six servings. I'd imagine using tinned ingredients would've cost a tad more but tasted considerably worse.

>>8978241
I like American homemade food quite a lot but it seems rare outside of certain homes of the deep south and certain religious communities.
When you find an American who cooks, though, they're every bit as good as anyone else. Problem is, your media/advertising has tricked several generations in a row that cooking is difficult and time-consuming, battering a "why bother?" rhetoric down your collective throat. And, as of the 90s, my country is doing it now, too.

>>8977954
the only thing cringeworthy about hotdish is the coastie cucks who act like it's not normal food

>>8977941
Uff da