Memory Food: Brown Rice Casserole

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-mushroom-rice/

   Brown Rice Casserole Recipe

   You’ll need

    ·      2 cans of French onion soup

    ·        2 cans of beef consume

    ·        2.5 cups of white rice

    ·        A stick of butter

    ·        A small jar of chopped mushrooms

Step 1: Combine all four cans of soup with 2.5 cups of rice

Step 2: Add a full stick of butter (sliced throughout the dish) and add half of the jar of mushrooms

Step 3: Cook at 325º for 25 minutes

Step 4: Add the rest of the mushrooms and stir the casserole

Step 5: Cook at 325ºfor an additional 20 minutes

Step 6: Stir and serve (best if eaten right out of the oven, but cooperates well as leftovers too (microwave friendly))

Every holiday I ever remember as a child, there was brown rice casserole at nearly every meal. I wouldn’t even look at mushrooms before I tried this dish. The reason for its appeal is obvious. It is easy to make, doesn’t require a lot of time or observations, it’s tasty, and it has a WHOLE stick of butter in it. I love to cook (when I have time) and this was one of the first dishes I ever learned to make. As soon as I was eight years old, it was my responsibility to bring brown rice casserole to every holiday. Some of my relatives would even call me to make sure I was going to bring it to the family gathering. But before all of this took place and I could make it myself, my mother used to make it for me. I would ask her as a child, “Are you going to make the mushroom rice for Christmas?” She would always answer, “Of course, picky butt. It’s not like you’re going to eat much else when you’re at my Mother’s house any way.” Needless to say I was and still am a very fastidious eater (but in my defense I am an only child). This relationship between my mother, this dish, and I made me think back to Allison’s article “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunchbox as Ideological State Apparatus”. In this article, Allison mentions the importance of obentos and how it forms a bond between mother and child. The mothers spend lots of time planning, plotting, and creating an attractive display for their children’s meals at day care (p.84-86). Of course in this article, the mothers are making the meals attractive not just for their children but for the people watching their children as well (p.84). There is an understanding that a proper child with a proper parent eats all of the obentos (p.86). A pretty display aids in the eating process for a child. But in my life my mother spent lots of time making things more attractive so I would eat them. She would sneak in veggies in cuisines and try to camouflage them so I would eat them (it didn’t often work). But in regards to the article, I’m sure those kids look back and think about how much time and attention their mothers dedicated to them when making the obentos (especially once they have kids of their own). The fathers may not realize it as much since they don’t have to create the obentos (p.87). But those foods probably still mean a lot to the children like brown rice casserole means to me.