The cans used to contain 7 oz, then 6.5 oz, and now 6 oz.

Costco's very good Albacore is still 7oz.

i always like a radical twist or gourmet-ish version on a classic . . . if it works. anyone have such a recipe to share?

Years ago I recall David Rosenzweig making a deconstructed tuna casserole (you can it was years ago by the use of "deconstructed" and "Rosenzweig" in the sentence). He used large cubes of fresh tuna and I don't recall much else. I was intrigued at the time but not enough to try it myself. I suspect if I saw the recipe today it would not look all that appealing.

Cathy, I really hate that. I wish they would just raise the price if they need to. It screws up recipes if you're not paying attention and is just plain shady. How stupid do they think we are? At least the 1.5 qt ice cream containers are so freaking tiny you can hardly mistake them for the old half gallon boxes.

Good for Costco, I haven't seen a 7oz can of tuna in years. You're sure its got 7oz tuna in it right, not just the same size can?

Costco's solid albacore is awfully hard to beat: very high-quality tuna.

Geo

Tuna casserole was a weekly staple at the Presbyterian summer camp that I attended as a child and spent my summers at as the assistant waterfront director for the two years before and after my freshman year of college. No noodles. One can of tuna. One can of cream of mushroom soup. One can of peas. One bag of potato chips. Mix well and bake. I loved it at the time, but tried it sometime recently (i.e. within the last 15 years, which counts as recent for me) and the salt was unbearable.

Tuna casserole was always served with lime applesauce jello. Heat one cup of applesauce till hot. Stir in one small box of lime jello. Add one seven ounce bottle of Seven Up. Refrigerate. Optional to make a "frosting" with cream cheese and mayo to spread on top before serving. Now that my mother-in-law can't eat any solid foods I actually make this one fairly often--albeit often with water instead of the Seven Up. Most recently I've been substituting pureed canned apricots and apricot jello and it seems to be a hit.

No noodles? That recipe sounds awful. Was that Camp Barf-a-lot?

I grew up in California in a totally religion-free household (not atheist, not agnostic, just not anything) and my mom made her Tuna Casserole straight from the back of the Campbell's soup can. Sort of. I think she added sour cream (showing her Norwegian roots) and she used crushed Fritos on top. And she did not cook the egg noodles first, she tossed them in uncooked and they were just fine after baking off in the soupy mixture. This makes sense since egg noodles only need 6 or 7 minutes to cook.

Apparently I was the only one amongst my three other siblings who absolutely adored the TNC. My mom had a ritual on our birthdays where she make us whatever we wanted. This might seem like a no big deal thing, but my mom worked nights as a nurse so now I realize that she arranged to have our birthday evenings off. Anyhow, my sisters and brother were absolutely shocked, mortified and befuddled when one year I asked my mom to make Tuna Casserole for my birthday supper. I can still hear them, "You could have had pizza! Or French Dip or Terryaki Steak! What is your problem?"

My problem, if it is a problem, is that I just love it. And still do.

I once made it for my house-mates in Grad School, one who is now my husband and the father to our two tuna-hating children. They both said, "Don't ever make that for us again or even when we're not here." And so now I make it when I am solo or like someone said way up, the Stouffer's version isn't bad but it will fulfill your sodium intake for three days.


bjt

Yes, I love tuna casserole. Standard can o' soup recipe, we used crushed Ritz (or their generic equivalent) crackers on top. I add frozen peas and sometimes a little garlic powder and cayenne. The DH tolerates it, it is not his favorite, and not something he grew up on.

For a tantalizing change, try Cream of Celery soup instead of the Mushroom.

Talk about a thread's being relevant! In this week's "Stone Soup" comic strip, the girls are making their version of Mom's tuna cassarole. Here's today's strip, in which some favorite, but non-standard, ingredients are being added.

Geo

I always had an idea that tuna-noodle casserole was a variant of noodle kugel, but I agree that its origins are most likely American.

Wherever it came from, it was certainly popularized by the Campbell's Soup company after they introduced Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup in 1934. Campbell's published tuna-noodle casserole recipes as early as 1941.

My European-born grandmother was an excellent cook who regularly made her own chicken stock, hand-chopped liver, scratch cakes and other time-consuming dishes (not to mention wonderful kugels), but her tuna-noodle casserole was a pure American convenience food creation, which started with Kraft dinner, included cream of mushroom soup and had a topping of American cheese slices. It was a regular lunch dish and sometimes supper when I was a kid, and I loved it.

Welcome to my childhood!

Creamed Tuna on Toast


1 Tablespoon Butter
2 shallots minced
2 Tablespoons butter
2.5 Tablespoons flour

Drained liquid from tuna plus enough milk to make 1 cup total
7 ounce can tuna
Salt and Pepper to taste

2 slices of toasted bread.

Turn oven on to 175 for two minutes, then turn off. Place two large soup bowls to warm.

Melted one tablespoon butter, added minced shallots to cook for a few minutes.

To the put additional butter, once melted stir in 2.5 tablespoons flour. Cook a few minutes to reduce raw flour taste. Meanwhile heat tuna liquid and milk in the microwave. One roux has cooked a few minutes, add the heated tuna water-milk and stir immediately with a whip. If sauce is too thick, then add more milk and heat through a few minutes.

Add tuna to cream sauce and gently heat. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pop bread into toaster to medium brown setting (or whatever you like). Remove bowls from oven, add a piece of toast each and ladle creamed tuna mixture.

Provenance:
- Tuna from Costco
- Sourdough bread from Costco
- 2% milk from Costco
- Shallot from McHenry County
- Flour, only the best, Gold Medal
- Butter from Costco
- Salt from Jewel
- Pepper from Costco

How this was different from my Mother's creamed tuna?
- Heat the bowls
- Added shallots
- Never dreamed of having sourdough bread.

I'm taking a class on writing recipes, this is a good practice run. It will be interesting to learn what I did wrong!

Regards,

Whoa Cathy2:

My mom had her own term for what you pictured, (it's crude so be forewarned) she called it S.O.S which meant Shit on a Shingle. That actually translated to several creamy/comfort food things served on Toast. So you weren't constrained to just TNC but you could branch off to Chipped Beef (what this is I am not sure but it was in a cream sauce) and who knows what else? Wait, is Welsh Rarebit served on toast too? I bet it is, as a kid I always thought she ways eating some part of a rabbit. But I hoped she wasn't.

bjt

When I was in the Army, creamed chipped beef on toast, at oh-dark-thirty in the morning mess hall, was definitively SOS. Trust me on this!

Geo
PS. ...I hated to admit to my men that I actually liked it.
PPS. Hmmm, I wonder if there's a recipe for it anywhere, mark a return to my (somewhat more) youthful days...

Geo wrote:PPS. Hmmm, I wonder if there's a recipe for it anywhere, mark a return to my (somewhat more) youthful days...

Why not try an updated vegetarian version of the Army classic: Shiitake on a Shingle?

Geo,

I didn't just like SOS. I loved it and still do. In the seventies, the army had changed over to ground rather than dried beef. The link below provides both the army and navy recipes.

http://www.seabeecook.com/cookery/cooki ... ng_sos.htm

My grandfather Richard "Dick" Hane was a Naval Surgeon in the South Pacific during WWII. The only way that I think my Mom could have learned to love SOS was through her Dad. I will ask my Aunt about her memories of SOS. I think families with good senses of humor of food in trying times make it through with such nicknames. (And you are with a new family when at war or even in the military.)

Funny that aired dried beef got a bad bad rap back then, I just paid $14/pound for it in the name of Bresoala for a salad with persimmons and fennel.

bjt

Hi,

I have only once had SOS in a restaurant. It was Barbara Fritchie Restaurant in Fredericksburg, Maryland. The restaurant's name honored a heroine of the Civil War.

My best friend's Dad was a WW2 veteran who loved to recall SOS, too.

Regards,

Here's a Wikipedia take on SOS (always taken with a grain of salt, pun intended)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipped_beef

Wait: should we have a Tuna Casserole Meets SOS party or is that just too freaky?


bjt

Ronnie,

Tnx sooo much for that reference! I copied it immediately into my recipe file. I did two stints in the army: the first, in '63, at Ft. Lewis, for Summer Camp, then active duty in '71 at Aberdeen Proving Ground. As your piece notes, the recipe shifted (mostly) to minced beef. But there were still a couple of mess halls at the Proving Ground that had ol' fashioned sarges in charge, and from them you could get real classic SOS.

Hmmmm, wonder where I could get chipped beef in Montréal?? (Bresoala's no problem, on the other hand! )

Geo

Geo,

When I need an SOS fix, I usually use the jarred Hormel/Armour type stuff, although I've been known to do the ground beef version from time to time.

IThere are a number of old fashioned butcher shops in and around Lancaster County, PA, that offer real dried beef by mail order. Below are a few links:

https://www.seltzersbologna.com/StoreFr ... Dispatcher

http://www.dietrichsmeats.com/smokedmeats.htm

I served for six years in this unit: http://www.armyfieldband.com/index.htm

Tnx for the tips Ronnie, methinks I'll get some by mail. *Love* the stuff!

Wow, am I impressed! Six years in the Army Field Band! Whatever you play, you must play it pretty darn well! Congrats! I was just a run-o'-the-mill Ordnance officer, XO of a school company, looking for a good breakfast every morning. Mess halls were where it was at in those days: SOS in rotation, always something good for breakfast.

But I can't ever remember getting tuna cassarole whilest in the Army. Altho', I'm not so sure I'd remember that, anyway. Does anyone remember tuna cassarole from the service? Wonder if it ever made the Official Recipe Lists??

Geo

I never ate chipped beef on toast until the Army; I liked it ok then, but I think I like it better now, forty years later. I'll often order it in country-themed restaurants, for instance a chain like Bob Evans, when on the road.

In general, I found Army food to be better than home. My mother cooked her home recipes, mostly New England, well and from scratch, but by the mid sixties had gone back to work, was under some stress and tended more-and-more to convenience foods. Army food was the same cuisine, "American-Country"(?) I'd grown up with, but made from fresh ingredients. And I watched the process up close, as a frequent K.P. One thing I remember being impressed with was how the pots, ten gallon aluminum usually, often had the date stamped on the lid and dated from WWII.

I understand from younger vets that K.P. is now a thing of the past, privatized. I regret that. There are some lyrical passages in From Here To Eternity about Pruitt's K.P. experiences. (Pruitt, Montgomery Clift in the movie, is being parked in almost perpetual K.P. by the First Sergeant, Warden, Burt Lancaster in the movie, for his own protection from deadly bullying actually being led by the Captain.) Pruitt often draws Pots and Pans, the hardest job, and on one memorable occasion is helped out by the Mess Sergeant, who likes him and also needs a pan. Pruitt watches in amazement at the Mess Sergeant's skill and even artistry at this mundane task. The kicker is that the very same thing once happened to me, in Basic. I was doing P&P, probably badly, and one of the senior cooks who needed a pan--about the size of a desktop--showed me how to do it and got what he needed at the same time.

Reams' Meat Market in Elburn also has dried beef. I gave some to my neighbor, and her Vietnam-era vet husband loved the SOS she made for him with it.

Yeah, I pulled pots & pans *twice* during Summer Camp, 1963. First, you chopped up a Fels Naptha bar (of all things), then put the choppings in a punched-out 3-lb coffee can and agitated wildly in the hot-water-filled sink. After producing lots of foamy water, you commenced washing the p & p's. It was hard work, but rewarding: a *really* clean 10-gallon pot is a thing of beauty.

Strange, but not a single detergent in the kitchen, only soaps.

I ate several times in the privatized mess halls of my brother's 90s Army. No ownership there; like going to a fast food store. It's a dead loss.

Cabbagehead, was there tuna cassarole in your mess hall?

Geo

Cabbagehead, was there tuna cassarole in your mess hall?

If there were, it didn't make any particular impression on me. My overriding memory is of fresh ingredients; I'm sure there were large cans of things like Tuna--like Costco sizes only bigger--but I don't remember them. I do remember senior cooks standing by roasts and hams, carving for individual soldiers. Also one making your breakfast eggs to order at the grill.

And this is from Basic training onwards, happening within minutes of your being shouted at, bullied, run off your feet. The toughening didn't extend to the dining halls, which were maintained as a haven, although you did have to eat fairly quickly, never a hardship for me. Most guys gained weight despite the heavy exercise and winter exposure.

Made what I thought was a really good and simple tuna noodle casserole last night, with a garlic-infused bechamel being the main thing to separate it from more standard versions. Here's an approximate recipe:

2.5 cups of milk
2.5 tablespoons of flour
2.5 tablespoons butter
5 minced garlic cloves
1 jar of Italian tuna in olive oil
1/2 cup frozen peas
day old sourdough bread for crumbing
fresh parsley
A pound of some kind of smallish noodles
a little butter

Make bechamel by cooking the garlic in the butter for a couple of minutes, then adding the flour and cooking that for a couple of minutes, then whisking in the pre-heated milk simmering for about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper.

Cook noodles in salted water until very al dente. Drain. Mix noodles, bechamel, peas and tuna together, then pour into a buttered casserole dish.

Whirl bread pieces in a blender or food processor with some chopped parsley. Use these parslied breadcrumbs to top the casserole, then dot the whole thing with butter.

Bake, covered at 350 for about 40 minutes, then uncovered at 400 for another 10, until toasty brown on top. Serve.

tcdup wrote:Reams' Meat Market in Elburn also has dried beef. I gave some to my neighbor, and her Vietnam-era vet husband loved the SOS she made for him with it.

Darn it, I keep telling you that SOS is made with ground beef, at least in the 1950's Navy.

With chipped beef on toast (and Randy Reem's is very good, like everything else he makes) it was always referred to as "foreskins on toast."

I like this once in a while but rarely make it. Maybe I will now. I have noodles and tuna and just need the chips. There is also another recipe called chow mein noodle casserole. Its made with hamburger and rice and chowmein noodles and is also tasty but not a dish for meatless meals. No tuna on toast but we had chipped beef on toast.

MikeLM wrote:Darn it, I keep telling you that SOS is made with ground beef, at least in the 1950's Navy.

You Navy guys... sooo inauthentic! In 60s U.S. Army, it was chipped beef what made SOS authentic.

Geo