Bigly Green Bean Casserole

Folks. FOLKS. Green bean casserole. The classic. The American holiday institution. And I'm going to say something that is going to make a lot of people upset, a lot of so-called 'food writers' are going to lose their minds, they will write angry blog posts that nobody reads — that's fine, I welcome it, let them seethe — but I'm going to say it: the green bean casserole you grew up with? The one from the can? With the soup and the crispy onions in the canister? That was BAD. It was bad. Somebody had to tell you. Your aunt has been lying to you for forty years and SHE knew it, she knew it the whole time.

Because this is the REAL green bean casserole. This is what green bean casserole was SUPPOSED to be before America took a wrong turn in 1955 and started opening cans. Real green beans, blanched until bright and snappy. A mushroom cream sauce made from ACTUAL mushrooms — I know, shocking, mushrooms in mushroom sauce, revolutionary, somebody give me a medal — and a topping of fried shallots that you make YOURSELF, in a pan, like an adult, and that taste like the best onion ring you've ever had in your life multiplied by a thousand. People come up to me, they say 'Bigly, the shallots, what did you do, my brain is melting' — and I say, that's just butter and patience. Butter. And patience. And me. Mostly me.

Now here is what nobody tells you. Big Soup doesn't want you reading this. They've been getting away with it for years — 47 million cans of condensed mushroom sludge sold every November, 200 holiday tables ruined per neighborhood, $22 of canned product where $4 of mushrooms would do the job better. It's a scandal. It's a crime against the green bean. Restaurant kitchens cut this corner and so does your aunt and so did her aunt and somebody has to stop the chain. Your friend Bigly is telling you: make it from scratch. It takes one extra hour. You have one extra hour. You've got nothing but time on Thanksgiving anyway, the parade's on, the dog is asleep, get to work. It's a beautiful thing.

And that's it. The green bean casserole that ends the green bean casserole conversation forever. People will tell stories about your green bean casserole. They will talk about it at funerals. 'Remember the year she made the green bean casserole?' Yes, they'll say. Yes, we remember. Because it was bigly. Because it was tremendous. Because it was finally — FINALLY — green bean casserole that tasted like food and not like a science experiment in a beige Pyrex. Make it. Make it once. You'll never go back. You're welcome.