When I posted nine years ago on the green bean casserole, I linked to an article in Bon Appetit magazine which was scornful of the Campbell’s version. The author said that a from-scratch version of the casserole would be an improvement on “soggy, defrosted green beans bathed in insipid mushroom soup concentrate”.
I understood that the fact that the Reilly recipe was composed entirely of processed commercial foods—canned green beans, the Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, canned French fried onions—would tend to put a gourmet’s teeth on edge.
So it gladdened my heart to see that Mr. Plous experimented with a version of the casserole using fresh ingredients and found the Reilly’s version superior (“her recipe was demonstrably superior—not just easier to prepare but tastier and more satisfying”). he singles out for praise the “mouthfeel” of the Reilly recipe—a concept that he says was unknown in the 1950’s.