A dish prepared as a mixture of meats, fish, vegetables, seasonings, etc., and baked in a glass or ceramic container, usually with a cover.
The notion of cooking an entire meal in a single dish is one of the oldest in culinary practice; it was a common technique during the Middle Ages when pot dishes sometimes housed an ark-like variety of aerial and terrestrial animals. In the early eighteenth century English acquired the word casserole, the name of a dish that commonly serves as a complete meal for an entire family. Nonetheless, it was not until new, light-weight oven dishes were invented in the 1950s that casseroles became, like hula-hoops, wildly popular, at least in North America. English borrowed the word casserole from French, which had earlier formed it from casse, meaning pan or ladle. In turn, the French casse probably derives, via Latin, from the Greek kuathos, meaning serving cup. The term cassolette, literally meaning a small casserole, was first used as a culinary term in the early nineteenth century, although it had been used since the mid seventeenth century as a name for a vessel in which incense was burned. The same word, with a slightly different spelling, cassoulet, was again borrowed from French in the 1930s as the name of a ragout made of beans and duck or goose.
A weighty container, frequently made of glass or pottery, utilized for baking and serving food. The food, once prepared and served in this container, is commonly referred to as “en Casserole.”