Interesting article! I love cooking recipes that my mother made when I was a kid, because the smell of the kitchen takes me back to hers, just as the author mentioned. You know what I also love? Cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soup. Chicken spaghetti is still a favorite at our house -- cooked chicken diced mixed with sliced celery and mushrooms, cooked spaghetti, and a can each of cream of mushroom and cream of chicken. Pour it in a baking dish and top it with grated cheddar and bake until bubbly. Talk about addicting! I just prefer to use these soups every now and then on a comfort food night. There's a time and place for them, and there should be no shame in having a fond place in your heart for them.

We made my mom's clam chowder (three cans of cream of potato mixed with three cans clam chowder, can of clams, half and half, onions and an ungodly amount of butter) the other day, which is a recipe I loved in high school, and it was definietly not as good as I remember it being. It's hard, because now I want to find a really good, fully homemade recipes but I have no idea how to introduce it to them without hurting my mom's feelings.

I revisit my mom's canned shortcuts a couple of times a month. In fact just this past Sunday, after a particularly strenuous workout that left me completely drained, supper was spaghetti with a simple sauce of cream of mushroom soup, sauteed onion, garlic and broccoli, peccorino and lots of pepper. Quick, satisfying, and full of nostalgia!

My mom wasn't the greatest cook. But there were 2 things she made that I loved. American Chop Suey with Campbell's tomato soup and these chicken legs with the cream of mushroom soup. Part of the recipe was to mix grape jelly into the cream of mushroom soup. I never made the chicken before becoming a vegetarian, I did make the American Chop Suey a few times, so easy and so good :)

My mom made Tuna Noodle Casserole a lot when I was growing up, using Cream-of-Something soup and Velveeta, of course. She still makes it when I come home to visit and I seriously can't get enough. I love it so much and I think it tastes better than when I was a kid for some reason. Also, I've tried making it myself at home and it doesn't turn out the same.

Honest to God, we had something in my house called Potato Chip Casserole. 1 bag of chips, smushed; 2 cans cream of mushroom, and 1 can tuna. My grandmother got the recipe when my father begged her to get it from the lunch lady. My husband refuses to eat it, claiming it "represents the worst diet possible." Snob. So I make it when he's not around. It's even better with a layer of extra sharp cheddar gingerly layered inside. We have lovingly renamed it "Salt and Fat Casserole."

My mom would mix a can of cream of mushroom and 1/4 cup of cooking cherry, heat to almost boiling, then add a small sour cream carton to it. She would pour that over cooked white rice, boiled shrimp, and cooked mushrooms. That was a special occasion dinner. I loved it as a child and imagine it would probably not be as good now. I should try it again.

My mom wasn't a very inspired cook--she did it because she had three of us to feed, not because she enjoyed it--and both she and my dad worked full-time. Convenience/processed foods were often on the menu. I don't break out the Cream of soups too often but there are days when a little comfort food with all that creamy goodness is needed.

bahahaha RASPBERRYJAM, I love snob comment. So matter of fact. :)

I have a picky eating child and an adventurous eating child. Picky came along second, after we got used to a 2yo eating raw oysters and anything we put in front of her. Picky ate a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches for an entire year when he was 4. After another night of picky not even trying another dinner, I broke out the cream of mushroom soup, pork chops and my old crockpot and made my parent's smothered porkchops and rice. Now it's Picky's favorite dish. There is a good reason our parents made these dishes: convenience and harmony.

I totally still make my grandmother's baked macaroni: Campell's tomato soup, ziti, cheddar cheese, a little bit of sugar, and a lot of butter. It's one of my favorite all-time dishes, but I usually try to hide what's in it when I make it for other people!

@raspberry jam Your husband would get along great with mine! I was endlessly mocked for my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook when we first got together, and insisted I switch to Fannie Farmer. Last visit at my mom's she made us a "Mexican" casserole that involved a bag of crushed Fritos. Again, mocked mercilessly (not within earshot of my mom).

I have always thought this stuff was absolutely disgusting... in terms of both taste and nutritional LACK of value. It's just nasty...

When I finally finished the last can of "cream of whatever" I had in the pantry, I voed to not bring it home. There are so many great ways to make the "creamy" of whatever- infact last weekend I made pot pie and use my home canned chicken stock with herbs, salt, butter and flour, cooked until thick- it was delicious in the pie. I am not denying that it is good (infact I I'll still eat it at family gatherings, etc) but somethings aren't just what they used to be.

@RaspberryJam, we had the same thing growing up!!

My Mom doesn't cook much anymore, but my sisters and I insist that she brings her infamous sweet potatoes (with the marshmallows on top!) every Thanksgiving. Thankfully they don't require cream of anything.

My MIL, on the other hand, still cooks most meals like it's 1973 and altho she doesn't do the creamy canned soups, her pork chop suey is showing its age. :( Overcooked vegs, a gloopy sauce and just bland everything. Thankfully she seems to like most of what I cook, tho my FIL can't seem to understand what that 'crazy' naan is doing on his table some nights!

I try to keep super processed stuff like this out of daily, even weekly, rotation, but sometimes it's great for pure nostalgia value. My mom didn't do a lot of canned soup type casseroles - with the occasional exception of those green beans with cream of mushroom and those weird crunchy onion things - though our house certainly didn't lack for processed convenience foods. I mostly associate the 'cream of whatever' in casserole form with southern and midwestern cooking, even though I grew up just a few miles from Campbell Soup HQ in New Jersey.

My mom used Cream of Mushroom Soup with meatballs over egg noodles. Looking back, I can see it was made on a budget to feed a family of five for a very low cost.

My favorite dish that my mom made was potato soup. Cream of chicken soup, russet potatoes, bacon bits, milk, and... I don't know what else was in it. It was salty. Margarine, probably.

Tuna noodle casserole, chicken spaghetti, stroganoff, and King Ranch Chicken were on regular rotation in the house.

We all still request King Ranch Chicken because it's pretty darn tasty. Green rice casserole also features on the holiday menus.

My single mother with four kids often made us tuna casserole (tuna helper was too expensive!) - two cans of store brand cream of mushroom soup,a bagof egg noodles and a can of tuna fed a family of five. If she wanted to fancy it up, she'd dump in 1/4 of a bag of frozen peas.

I consider myself a pretty damn good coke with discerning taste - and I still make this once or twice a year. It reminds me of my youth and is still pretty tasty.

Cream of mushroom soup seems like it would be hard to replicate at home for casserole cooking purposes. Ditto cream of celery. Cream of potato and cream of chicken on the other hand? Easy peasy. I've made a chicken broth-based roux for creamed chicken and vegetables before and it was just as good if not better than the kind I once made with cream of chicken soup. Less salty, perhaps, and a little less thick, but just as tasty. And cheaper too, since I used homemade broth.

I grew up on Hamburger Helper and while I won't turn my nose up at this stuff at someone's house (I'll never make jello at home, but I love eating it at other people's houses), I almost never make it at home. I view it like I do cheeseburgers or fast food - once in a while it's okay and often it tastes pretty good, especially if I'm feeling blue or nostalgic. But mostly I avoid canned and boxed stuff. Except canned tomatoes, beans, and artichokes. But canned soup is the devil. Especially the stuff you're supposed to make into soup, not casseroles. Homemade soup is 8 million times better.

Makes me think I should try to replicate an old recipe of my mom's. On our birthday every year, we kids were allowed to choose the dinner. I always chose "Concoction". As far as I can remember, you brown some ground beef, add some rice, and cook the whole mess in a casserole dish with a can each of cream of chicken and cream of mushroom. Mmmmm. My husband laughs at that story, but I bet he and my kids would gobble it up.

I've often felt that my residual love of the cream-of-casseroles of my childhood were something that I should keep shamefully secret, especially in the context of my current semi-food-snob lifestyle. It's so great to see that I'm not the only one! :-)

My mother's favorite "company dinner" dish was beef stroganoff. We had it whenever we had company over. Since she would accompany it with dessert of homemade apple pie, I always thought it was made from scratch through and through. She didn't like my then husband and I had to wait for 10 yrs after we were married for the receipe. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I found out all it was was a combination of cream of tomato, cream of mushroom, round steak and green pepper with sour cream thrown in at the end over egg noddles. Come to find out she got it from her MIL back in the '50s.

I read the article, and I'm not surprised his dinner guests turned their nose up at the chicken cutlet/mushroom soup casserole. He also slow-roasted a pork shoulder with garlic and chiles, and baked clams and fried eel. He sautéed squid and squeezed lemons and limes and oranges on uncooked bay scallops. AND he made a salad of kale and brussels sprouts and toasted almonds! I mean, if his dinner guests are used to eating like that, who WOULD eat what appears to be a boring, bland, beige meal? I think he should have just offered the casserole. That would have been a better test. I think I may need to whip up some chicken cutlets now, though. I'd have been eating them right along with the 11-year-old!

my mom always made broccoli casserole with cream of mushroom soup. god it was good.

I have Amazon ship Pacific's organic cream of mushroom and organic cream of celery soups quarterly. While I usually cook from scratch, I find these cream ofs very convenient for prepping slow cooker meals to be eaten on nights that I have class until 9p. My family really loves some of the comfort foods they produce, such as chicken and dumplings and a simplified version of chicken and veggie curry (served over Basmati). I've actually enjoyed figuring out what beloved classics can be made more quickly and easily using these soups. I understand the reluctance of some to either use or eat these handy shortcuts, but I'd rather my family had a hot, almost homemade meal on a busy night than fast food *bleh*