"tamale casserole" news and stories

It is quite untrue to say that no casserole is a good casserole. After all, they have enjoyed fairly consistent popularity over the course of the last century, though the concept has been around much longer. If all casseroles were horrible, we wouldn't still be making them. Recipes for casseroles, however, can be downright scary. A can of sauce, a frozen chunk of miscellaneous meat and less than appetizing vegetables, possibly added to conceal a look of produce past its prime.

Like so many other cooking enthusiasts, I collect old cookbooks mainly for the kitsch factor. Here it is, Retro Day, and I am so pissed that my collection is sitting in boxes in our garage in Portland, Ore. as I type this from San Francisco.  (We moved back a month ago, but all our stuff is not with us yet.) I have the choicest collection of Fifties cookbooks and would have loved to share recipes.

I did have the forethought to bring one retro-y cookbook with me, the Stanford Golf Club Women's Section cookbook. It's type-written, mimeographed, and hand-bound, and from it, I pulled:

Tamale Casserole

7 x 11 glass baking dish

Following layers:

1 cans beef tamales, cut into pieces
5 oz tortilla chips
2 cans of chili without beans
2 bunches of green onions, chopped
1/2 pound of sharp cheddar cheese grated

Preheat oven to 350º. Bake 30 minutes uncovered. (copied verbatim)

[photo: Thom Hackett]